Madhesh Province Government Plans Budget Reduction for Next Fiscal Year

Janakpurdham. The Madhesh Province government has expedited the budget construction process for the upcoming fiscal year. The province's finance ministry has intensified preparations for budget construction by seeking details of necessary plans and programs from various ministries.

This time, the Madhesh government has adopted a strategy to reduce the size of the budget based on past experiences. Due to the problems in implementation, increased budget deficit, and the recurring situation of many projects remaining incomplete caused by bringing a large budget every year without realistically assessing income sources, emphasis has been placed on practical budget construction this time.

Province Finance Minister Mahesh Yadav stated that the process of determining the budget limit for the concerned ministries has been initiated for budget construction. According to him, the upcoming budget will focus on implementable and executable plans.

For the current fiscal year, the Madhesh government had brought a budget of approximately 47 billion rupees, but preparations are underway to limit the size of the budget for the upcoming fiscal year to a maximum of 32 billion rupees. According to him, the effectiveness of implementation will be prioritized over the size of the budget.

Finance Minister Yadav told RatoPati, 'Small and fragmented projects will be discouraged in the upcoming budget. The provincial government has adopted a policy of prioritizing only large and medium-sized projects that can be completed.'

Accordingly, preparations are being made to include only projects above one crore rupees in the budget, he said.

Secretary of the Provincial Finance Ministry, Ram Kumar Mahato, informed that the preliminary revenue projection has already been submitted to the federal finance ministry and the finance commission in accordance with the province's financial procedures rules. He stated that the budget guideline and draft budget limit have been prepared and discussions on them have also begun.

The ministry has stated that after the discussion process is completed, the budget limit will be sent to the ministries from next week.

Meanwhile, preparations are also being made to change the inter-financial transfer system with local levels. In the past, direct allocation of grants to local levels caused delays in project implementation, lack of transparency, and payment problems, so a new system is being prepared to be implemented from the upcoming fiscal year.

Now, proposals for projects will be sought from the local levels themselves and included in the province's budget. Although the local levels will implement the projects, the finance minister Yadav said that preparations are being made to create a new policy where the payment process will be through the provincial government.

The Madhesh government has stated that transparency and results-oriented implementation have been central to budget construction this time. The government claims that despite the smaller budget size, development will be accelerated through effective implementation.