The government has added 117 new projects to the National Project Bank (NPB) ahead of the budget announcement for the fiscal year 2025/26.

According to the Vice Chairman of National Planning Commission (NPC) Dr. Shivaraj Adhikari, the projects were included in the NPB before the budget presentation scheduled for today, May 29. The Economic Work Procedure and Financial Accountability Regulation, 2020 mandates that only projects listed in the NPB are eligible for budget allocations.

In February, the NPC introduced the NPB (Operation and Management) Standards, 2024 , which made it compulsory to register new projects in the NPB before the end of Chaitra (mid-April). However, the commission extended the deadline till May 27—two days before the fiscal budget announcement—after failing to meet the original cutoff.

As of May 27, the NPB’s management information system had recorded a total of 1,327 projects. Of these, 1,141 projects have an estimated cost of up to Rs 30 million, 79 projects range between Rs 30 million and Rs 50 million, 44 projects fall between Rs 50 million and Rs 100 million, and 23 projects are valued between Rs 100 million and Rs 1 billion.

The database also includes 19 large-scale projects costing over Rs 1 billion under the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport, followed by 11 such projects under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

Out of the total projects, 117 (8.81 percent) are newly added, 89 (6.70 percent) are sequential entries, and 1,121 (84.47 percent) remain under study, according to the NPC secretariat. -- RSS