April 22: Ministries have expressed dissatisfaction over the budget ceiling set by the National Planning Commission (NPC) for the upcoming fiscal year (FY 2021/22).

The ministries are dissatisfied since the NPC has set the ceiling with a slight increase only compared to the last fiscal year, assessing that the government's possible measures to contain the second wave of coronavirus might adversely affect government resources.

Ministries including Agriculture and Livestock Development, Urban Development, Physical Infrastructure and Transport, Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, Federal Affairs and General Administration have demanded to increase the limit saying it is extremely low. However, the NPC has not yet fixed the budget for all ministries.

During the pre-budget briefing initiated by Parliamentary Finance Committee from this week, ministries have said that they will be unable to bring new programmes under the ceiling set by the NPC. The Finance Committee of parliament had discussed the issue with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) during the briefing. The ministry has got a budget ceiling of Rs 36.23 billion for the upcoming fiscal year.

According to Yogendra Kumar Karki, Secretary of MOALD, this budget will be insufficient even for the ongoing projects. He said that the new projects can’t be introduced within this ceiling and ongoing projects also can’t be covered sufficiently.

Energy Secretary Dinesh Kumar Ghimire said bigger hydropower projects and transmission line projects including Upper Tamakoshi-5, Jagadulla, Dudhkoshi, Sunkoshi-3, Trishuli-4, Noumure have been proposed for the next fiscal year but the budget would not be sufficient for these projects.

“Projects related to production sector and rural hydropower and transmission projects don’t seem to get the budget,” he said. In such scenario, it is not possible to bring a new programme within the current ceiling.

The Ministry of Physical Planning and Infrastructure is also not satisfied with the budget ceiling.  One of the officials informed that the ministry will not propose new projects in the coming fiscal year and has started preparations to complete the ongoing projects. He further added that the Ministry is preparing to propose the budget so that ongoing projects need not deal with resources crunch.

Ministry of Urban Development has also said that the proposed budget is not enough even for ongoing projects. It has proposed a dozen of programmes with the budget estimate of Rs 13.32 billion.

Ministry of Federal Affairs and General Administration has also asked to increase the budget ceiling. NPC has set a budget ceiling of Rs 46.12 billion for the ministry. Of it, Rs 16.53 billion has been fixed for current expenditure while Rs 29.59 billion has been set for capital expenditure. Secretary Eknarayan Aryal said there are many works that need to be done under this limit.

He said that the programme proposed by the government to connect all local units to district centers alone require a budget of Rs 1.5 billion. He said more funds are required to build local level administrative building.

Grants are provided to rural municipalities, municipalities and sub-metropolitan cities on behalf of the Federal Ministry to build local administrative buildings. The budget ceiling is insufficient as village council needs 60 percent, municipality needs 50 percent, and sub-metropolis needs 40 percent of the grant.

Though the ministries are dissatisfied over the budget ceiling for the upcoming fiscal year, they have been incapable of spending the current budget. The budgets of the ministries have been returned back as they have not been able to spend the budget on the allocated projects.