Far-Western Province Government Faces Dismal Budget Spending, Only 16.22% Utilized After Eight Months

Dhangadhi. With eight months of the current fiscal year elapsed, the budget expenditure status of the Far-Western Province government appears extremely dire. According to data from the Provincial Accounts Controller's Office, the provincial government has managed to spend only about 16.22% of its total budget so far.

The provincial government has a total budget of NPR 33.433598 billion for this fiscal year. As of the end of Falgun, only NPR 5.492083 billion, covering both recurrent and capital expenditures, has been spent.

This implies that the government faces the pressure and challenge of spending approximately 84% of the total budget in the remaining four months.

The situation for capital expenditure, allocated for projects directly linked to the public such as infrastructure development, roads, bridges, irrigation, and drinking water in the province, is even more dismal. Only NPR 1.927845 billion has been spent out of the budget allocated for development construction.

This accounts for only 9.73% of the total capital budget. The fact that development spending has not even reached 10% by the month of Falgun, when typically at least 40% to 50% should have been spent, raises serious questions about the efficiency of the provincial government.

On the other hand, recurrent expenditure, covering administrative work, salaries, allowances, and office operations, has reached 26.21% (NPR 3.5642 billion).

Government officials claim that various administrative and technical reasons lie behind the failure to spend the development budget. According to Baldev Kapadi, Information Officer at the Provincial Accounts Controller's Office, the main problems are the inability to initiate the tender process for a long time, administrative hassles, failure to select projects on time, and staff shortages.

Furthermore, various protests, political instability, and some projects being inherently unfeasible have also affected budget spending. In many cases, budget allocation occurs before the DPR (Detailed Project Report) for a project is finalized, leading to significant problems at the implementation stage.

Budget execution this year appears even slower compared to the last fiscal year. In the previous fiscal year, the Far-Western Province government successfully spent 70% of its total budget. In the preceding year, capital expenditure reached 66.50% and recurrent expenditure reached 76.81%.

Looking at this year's latest statistics, it seems difficult to meet even last year's targets.

In the previous year, NPR 9.25 billion of the budget remained unspent and lapsed. With the slower pace of spending this year, concerns are growing that a large amount of the budget will lapse and development works will remain incomplete.