Kathmandu. More than 10,000 projects placed in the National Project Bank (Project Bank) have been cut in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2082/83.
The National Planning Commission has made the old Project Bank inactive after the trend of asking for budget by entering projects indiscriminately increased. Commission member Dr. Prakash Kumar Shrestha said in the Finance Committee meeting of the House of Representatives on Wednesday that the old Project Bank has been completely closed and a new Project Bank has been prepared.
However, he said that good projects have been transferred to the new Project Bank by keeping the old Project Bank as a ‘backup’. “The project bank has become very disorganized. There were more than 18,000 projects in the bank. Last year alone, about 11,000 projects were entered at the last minute,” Dr. Shrestha said in the Finance Committee meeting, “Only the names of some were entered. There is no other details about the projects.”
He informed that a new project bank has been prepared by keeping the old project bank as a ‘backup’ and more than 6,200 projects have been entered. Out of which, 3,180 projects are new. Although the commission itself has set standards that projects falling under the budget of the upcoming fiscal year should be entered in the project bank by mid-Chait, the process of entering projects has not stopped yet.
Dr. Shrestha said that most of the projects placed in the new project bank are related to the infrastructure sector. The largest number of projects have been entered by the Ministry of Urban Development alone, with more than 2,425. Similarly, 2,118 projects by the Ministry of Drinking Water and more than 1,100 projects by the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport have been placed in the bank. The commission has prepared standards that require projects included in the annual budget of the Government of Nepal to be placed in the project bank.
According to the National Project Bank (Work Operation and Management) Standards, 2081, projects must be entered in the project bank by disclosing the timeframe and budget cost for implementation for specific objectives, targets and results. The criteria state that infrastructure, economic, social, cultural, environmental and other development-related works that have been prepared and will be added to or transformed into public property after construction are considered projects and that such projects will be placed in the project bank.
Similarly, the source of project construction must also be disclosed. It has been arranged that all types of projects operated with the resources of the Government of Nepal, foreign and domestic loans or grants must be placed in the project bank. It has also been arranged that projects operated in public-private partnerships, national priority projects implemented by provincial and local governments must also be placed in the project bank.
According to the criteria, only projects with a cost or allocation of more than Rs. 30 million should be entered in it. Similarly, it has been arranged that only projects other than ongoing or annually implemented projects or programs should be placed in the national project bank. In the case of new projects to be implemented in the coming fiscal year, the provision has been made in the standards to enter the project bank by mid-Falgun of the current fiscal year, but for the coming fiscal year 2082/83, the provision had been made in the standards to enter the project by mid-Chait.
However, Commission member Shrestha admitted to the committee that the influx of projects from various ministries and agencies is continuing. Which may be contrary to the provisions of the existing project bank standards. The concept of the project bank has been introduced to discourage the tendency of randomly including projects in the budget.
This has been introduced to control projects that have not been prepared in advance, have not been source-secured, and have very low returns on cost. The provision to link it with various other information systems of the government has been made in the standards. The Project Bank needs to establish interconnections between the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, the Supplementary and Special Grant Systems to ensure necessary information exchange.
Similarly, there is a provision to establish interconnections between the Project Management Information System and the Budget Management Information System in coordination with the Ministry of Finance, the Electronic Procurement System in coordination with the Public Procurement Monitoring Office, and the Integrated ‘Online’ Monitoring System in coordination with the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers. Various documents must also be submitted compulsorily when entering any plan and program in the Project Bank. Under which, the detailed engineering design or detailed project report of the project, the brief environmental study report of the project or the preliminary environmental test report or the environmental impact assessment report have to be submitted.
Similarly, if land has to be acquired for the project, its action plan, procurement plan, implementation action plan, results framework and other matters have to be mentioned. There were a large number of projects for which these documents were not available in the old project bank. Due to this, the commission claims that it had to be trimmed. However, there is ample room for questioning about the quality of the projects included in the new project bank.
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