Province 1 spends just four percent of development budget in 1st quarter

BIRATNAGAR, Nov 4: The capital expenditure of Province 1 in the first quarter of the current fiscal year (2076/2077) stood at only around four percent, according to the Office of the Financial Comptroller General (OFCG), Biratnagar.

According to the office, the government had allocated Rs 23.57 billion for capital expenditure for the current fiscal year, but only Rs 1.40 billion has been spent in the first quarter of the current fiscal. The amount is only 4.4 percent of the budget allocated by the provincial government.

Antim Kumar Acharya, information officer at OFCG, said that the recurrent expenditure stood at 3.6 percent in the period. “The government had allocated a total of Rs 18.54 billion as recurrent expenditure for the current fiscal year. Of the total budget, Rs 675.8 million has been spent in the first quarter of the current fiscal year,” Acharya said, adding that the government spending will increase slowly in the remaining quarters.

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Acharya further added that monsoon, tender process, among others were the reasons behind slow capital expenditure. “The government spending will increase in the second quarter,” he added.

Gandaki Province has allocated a total of Rs 42.20 billion for the current fiscal year. Meanwhile, Acharya said that the spending has improved in comparison to the first three months of the last fiscal year. “In the first quarter of the last fiscal year, the overall spending of the provincial government stood at less than one percent,” Acharya said. 

The provincial government had directed the ministries to formulate work plans to improve budget spending. The ministries had also formulated their work plans as per the direction from the provincial government. Despite the formulation of the work plans, budget spending has not improved as per the plan of the provincial government.

Meanwhile, Sher Dhan Rai, chief minister of Province 1, has been saying that the government has been focusing on development of infrastructural projects to improve the overall budget spending.