Kathmandu. More than Rs 5 billion has been returned from various agencies, stating that the budget allocated for the current fiscal year will not be spent. According to the Ministry of Finance, the return of the capital budget is higher than the current one.
When analyzed by agency, the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation and the Millennium Challenge Account Nepal Development Committee (MCA-Nepal) have the highest budget return. According to Ambika Prasad Khanal, Information Officer at the Ministry of Finance, a budget of Rs 53.4 million has been returned for current and Rs 5.38 billion for capital.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has returned Rs 9.5 million for current, Rs 3.9 million for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, Rs 24.2 million for Election Commission, and Rs 15.8 million for Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation.
The Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation has returned the largest amount for capital. MCA-Nepal has returned a budget of Rs 2 billion, Khanal informed. Other agencies that have returned budgets for capital purposes include the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies (MCS) with Rs 367.8 million, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Rs 300 million, and the Office of the Auditor General with Rs 16.1 million.
According to the Financial Procedures and Financial Responsibility Act and Regulations, if the budget allocated for any plan or program cannot be spent by mid-Falgun and cannot be spent during the rest of the fiscal year, it must be returned to the Ministry of Finance by Chaitra 15. MCA-Nepal, which returned 70 percent of the budget last year, has returned about 58 percent of the budget this year.
If there is uncertainty about whether American support will continue for this project, which is being run with the support of the US government, the budget allocated by the government for this project will not be spent. MCA-Nepal had received a budget of Rs 13.36 billion for the current fiscal year. Of this amount, Rs 9.9 billion was expected to be received as a grant from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and the remaining Rs 3.45 billion would be met from internal sources.
However, after MCA-Nepal did not spend the budget, about 58 percent of the amount that was supposed to be met from internal sources has been returned to the Ministry of Finance. Not only in the current fiscal year, but also in the last fiscal year, MCA Nepal’s expenditure was very weak. MCA-Nepal had spent only about 30 percent of the total budget received for the last fiscal year and returned the remaining 70 percent.
The government had allocated Rs 10.84 billion for projects under MCA Nepal, of which Rs 7.67 billion was returned. The budget could not be spent as per the target due to the slow distribution of compensation and acquisition of land required for the construction of the electricity transmission line.
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