KATHMANDU, June 2: Although the government talks about curtailing unproductive expenses to economize the funds, the budget is found to have provisioned excess expenses under a number of headings.
Announcing the budget on Thursday, Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada had said that the government would economize the recurrent expenditure to reduce the gap of financial resources at a time when revenue collection has shrunk largely due to the over two months of lockdown. The budget mentions to cut off mainly the allocations for office operation, fuel, office maintenance, foreign visits by government officials, furniture purchase and purchase and maintenance of vehicles.
Revised budget allocates excess funds for distributive programs...
As per the budget, the government for the next fiscal year has increased the funds allocation under heading of organizing programs by 18 percent to Rs 40.57 billion. Likewise, the budget allocation under foreign allowances has been raised to Rs 828.9 million from Rs 755.5 million.
Similarly, the funds for purchase of furniture and fixtures has been increased by Rs 70 million to Rs 1.37 billion, that for vehicles maintenance has been increased by Rs 20 million to Rs 1.51 billion and the budget for visit expenses of government officials has been increased by Rs 80 million to Rs 1.66 billion.
Recently, following the budget, the government even fell into a controversy for releasing Rs 10 million to the President's Office for purchasing carpets.
Speaking on the budget session in the federal parliament on Sunday, the lawmakers also criticized the government for curtailing expenses just to get popularity. “Rather, the government should have considered qualitative restructuring of the existing bureaucratic set up for effective economizing of the state’s scarce financial resources,” according to lawmaker Pampha Bhusal.
