Kathmandu, Feb 6: The government has revised the budget of the current fiscal year through the half-yearly review.
Presenting the budget review of the current fiscal year in today's House meeting, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel said the revised estimation of the budget for the current fiscal year stands at Rs 1692.73 billion against Rs 1860.3 billion tabled in the House.
The revised amount of the budget is 90.99 percent of the total allocation announced in the budget speech.
According to Finance Minister Paudel, Rs 1029.3 billion is estimated for current expenditure while Rs 299.5 billion for capital expenditure and Rs 363.93 billion would be spent for fiscal management in the current fiscal year as per the revised budget.
As per the revised estimation, Rs 1476.26 billion would be spent from government resources including the revenue collection and internal loans while Rs 36.62 billion would be managed for the foreign grants and Rs 180.83 billion would be spent by receiving foreign loans by the end of the current fiscal year.
According to Minister Paudel, Rs 34.89 billion for provinces and Rs 150.26 for the local governments has been released under the fiscal transfer.
In the half-yearly review, the government has also pointed out the issues for reforms for budget implementation and resources management. As stated, new organizations would not be created in all government offices, regulatory bodies and public enterprises and austerity measures would be applied.
Presenting the by half-yearly budget review of the current fiscal year in the House of Representatives (HoR) meeting, Finance Minister Paudel said that the budget of the current fiscal year, unveiled by the erstwhile government, was not made being based on budget principle. He said that the budget made by going against the principle is a burden.
He also expressed his reservation to the erstwhile government saying that it placed the projects of even Rs 75,000 which was the violation of policy-level decision of the cabinet not to implement the fringe projects of less than Rs 30 million.
Minister Paudel said that the Ministry of Health and Population is under-funded by Rs 30 billion.
Likewise, the Finance Minister said that Rs 56 billion plus was spent in the first six months of the current fiscal year while such expenditure was Rs 49.91 billion in the same period in the last fiscal year.
Sharing some of the figures of economic indicators of the current fiscal year, Minister Paudel said that remittance inflow has not decreased against the last fiscal year and argued that the ordinances presented by the incumbent government in the recent past have troubleshot the challenges of economy and the private sector was excited.
Similarly, Minister Paudel said that revenue collection is estimated to meet the target.
He also said that public fiscal management was reformed and computer-based accounting system is implemented.
The next HoR meeting is scheduled to meet at 1:00 pm on Friday.
Meanwhile, the Finance Minister organized a news conference at the Ministry this evening after informing the HoR about the half-yearly revision report of the current fiscal year's budget.
On the occasion, Minister Paudel said the government was focused on performance and ensuring results adding that efforts are ongoing to bring about reforms to the economy.(RSS)
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