KATHMANDU, Oct 22: There is a lack of budget and technical staff for the technical tests started by the National Vigilance Center to make the development projects sustainable.

The Center under the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers has been vacant since 2019. Gyan Raj Subedi, spokesperson for the Center,  said that it has been difficult to test the quality of development projects due to the lack of technical staff including the chief of the Technical Division for the last two and a half years.

Even though there are five technical under secretaries for the technical division of the Center, only two have been working for a long time. The technical division has been functioning with only half of the total engineers assigned for the division. The center has been conducting technical testing of the top national pride projects.

Spokesperson Subedi said that work of the Center has been affected as the government employees do not want to come to the center to work. He said that employees who have just arrived are also transferred quickly. According to him, the Center faces an inadequate budget despite the policies and programs presented by the government in parliament talks about increasing the budget for technical testing of development projects.

Though a national budget of Rs 1,600 billion was presented in the current fiscal year, only Rs 8.5 million has been allocated for the technical testing of development projects. Although it has been mentioned in point 421 of the budget statement of the current fiscal year that the scope of technical testing will be expanded, there is not much work to be done due to the lack of budget and manpower.