Kathmandu, May 19: With merely 10 days to go for the budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2082/83 BS to be presented, the government is under pressure to screen projects and garner resources for the same.
In the current context of short of public revenue collection and gradual increment in the graph of public borrowing, the government has remained incapable of raising resources as per the budget ceiling of around 1900 billion 650 million given by the National Resource Estimation Committee for upcoming fiscal year.
Vice Chair of the National Planning Commission, Dr. Shivaraj Adhikari termed managing resources and prioritizing projects for the upcoming fiscal year’s budget as a big challenge.
The commission held discussions today with former vice-chairs and members to address the challenges of resource management and to strategize what measures can be taken for prioritizing projects in the budget.
‘The revenue that has shrunk since the COVID-19 pandemic has not returned to its previous rhythm. Foreign grants are on decline. The problems have turned chronic, entangled, and systemic’, he added.
‘There is lack of coordination among various levels and entities. In such context, resource management appears challenging.’ Due to lack of resources, the government has been indicating that there will be substantial cuts to projects in the upcoming fiscal year’s budget.
Dr Adhikari shared that the projects included in the government’s Red Book – which are not being implemented and are not yielding results, will face significant cuts.
“The national project bank has a database of 18,100 plus projects as of the current fiscal year 2081/82 BS. Taking consideration of the resource capacity we have revised the project bank containing only around 7,000 projects”, he informed.
“The projects with disclosure of deadline and costing, completion of preparedness and that having capacity to increase or transform public assets after completion are currently placed in the project bank”, it is informed.
He noted that projects estimated to cost over Rs. 30 million will be enlisted in the project bank, and the projects that could not be implemented in five years will be automatically deactivated from the project bank.
