Budget allocates less fund for infrastructure

The government has earmarked very less budget for the infrastructure in the current budget.
"The current budget has separated Rs 20.81 billion for the public infrastructure," said Bodh Raj Niraoula, chief of the Budget Department at the Finance Ministry.
Though, finance minister Surendra Pandey has separated Rs 129.54 billion for the capital expenditure, the development activities, the real amount for the public infrastructure comes to Rs 20.81 billion, which is only 6.7 per cent of the total budget of Rs 337.90 billion.
Similarly, the government has allocated Rs 2.40 for the compensation of the land, the government will take for the infrastructure development, he said, adding that the delay in budget could make it difficult for the total amount to be compensated as the people are more demanding.
According to the budget, the major infrastructure includes 10 new modern cities for business and residential purpose in the vicinity of Mid-hills Highway (Lok Marga) and North-South corridors.
The old bridges of Godawari of Dhangadhi, Bheri of Surkhet, Dharke and Mugling, and bridges across Pathalaiya to Koshi that have been put under government's priority list and construction of six lane wide roads linking international trade routes namely Birgunj-Pathlaiya, Belahiya-Butwal, Rani-Itahari and Surya Binayak-Dhulikhel.
Of the total budget for infrastructure, the government will spend Rs 65 billion from its own purse, whereas Rs 36 billion will be spent from the foreign loan and Rs 23 billion from the foreign grants, Niraoula added.
However, the experts doubt the government's capacity to spend the whole budget due to four-month delay -- from the regular schedule -- in budget and the new rule that has fixed the ceiling for the expenditure for each quarter of the fiscal year.
"Unlike previous years, we have tried to discourage the spending habbit at the end of the fiscal year," he said, adding that the budget has clearly spellt out the percentage of expenditure that could be done on the fixed quarter of the fiscal year."By mid-May, the government has to spend 60 per cent of the budget," according to the new rule that has barred to spend more than 15 per cent in the last month of the fiscal year.
The finance ministry also holds a regular review meeting every alternative month for the effective monitoring of the spending. "We held review meeting with the secretaries of different ministries last month to monitor the spending," Niraoula said, adding that the next meeting is scheduled for next month.Realising the difficulty in budget implementation, the Budget Department has also prepared Result Based Budget (RBB) syatem and change in the coding system to GFS 2001 from the next fiscal year's budget.
"The budge for the next fiscal year would be more effective," the department chief added.