Delay in programme approval hits capital expenditure

The trend of delaying the approved programmes from concerned ministries has hit the timely implementation of the priority projects, said a member of national think tank here today.
“The government should strongly discourage the trend of spending more development budget at the end quarter of the fiscal year in haste,” said, National Planning Commission member Janak Shah during the review of financial and physical progress of capital expenditure organised by Finance Ministry.

The ministries should follow the action plan to ensure effectiveness in capital expenditure, he added.
The participants in the meeting demanded the government to amend the provision of budget ceiling to spend in the last three months of the fiscal year. The provision that the concerned ministries can spend only 40 per cent budget during the last three months of the fiscal year has created the problem, they said.

However, finance secretary Krishna Hari Baskota said that the concerned ministries are not serious enough to execute the projects on time.

“It is a serious issue that the capital expenditure cannot meet the target this fiscal year too,” he said, adding that the ministries should review their working procedure to pinpoint the real problem.

The ministries have failed to increase capital expenditure in spite of the commitment of the government to execute national priority projects on time, said finance minister Barsha Man Pun, directing the concerned officials to put their best effort to ensure effectiveness in the remaining months of the fiscal year.

It is not justifiable that most of the ministries ask the Finance Ministry to release more fund at a time when they are not capable enough to spend released capital expenditure on time, he added.

He also said that the government will give priority to those projects which are directly linked to the people lives rather than continuity of sick projects which are not effective now.