Budget ceiling for districts up 7.66 per cent
KATHMANDU:
The National Planning Commission (NPC), the apex body that formulates development policies for the country, has raised the development budget ceiling for districts by 7.66 per cent for the next fiscal year.
Seventy-five districts have been given a budget ceiling of Rs 79.66 billion for fiscal 2015-16, as against the current fiscal’s allocation of Rs 73.99 billion.
Various districts will now have to prepare development and expenditure plans for various sectors by remaining within this ceiling. NPC has given a deadline of March 20 to submit these plans.
The government, earlier this year, had decided to allow all the districts to finalise projects and allocate funds on their own, making a departure from the existing practice of involving the NPC in executing these tasks. This practice of decentralising budget preparation and finalisation process is expected to increase participation of locals in the planning process and help the districts identify projects that are demand-based and suit their needs.
“In this regard, we have already sent a guideline to the local bodies based on which the projects have to be identified,” NPC Member Chandramani Adhikari said, adding, “For now, local development officers (civil servants of undersecretary level) will take the lead in finalising the projects, as District Development Committees lack elected representatives.”
As per the guideline, the local bodies will now have to conduct a feasibility study of the proposed project and ensure the project will serve locals’ needs. Also, they need to prepare project design and ascertain availability of institutional and technical capacity to implement the projects.
These measures were introduced as the existing practice of using lawmakers’ influence to enrol a project in the government’s budgetary programme was producing very little tangible result.
“Also, the practice of enrolling projects without conducting proper studies was hampering the government’s capital expenditure plan,” Adhikari said. “We hope these measures will boost capital spending and truly help districts to achieve their development goals.”
In this front, districts should identify projects that would help the country meet its overarching goal of poverty eradication, protect environment and promote inclusive development, says the guideline. At the same time, such projects should be labour-intensive so that maximum number of jobs could be created. They should also be cost effective but have the potential to cater to a large number of people.
Among others, such projects should not take too much time to complete, says the guideline, adding, priority should be given to ongoing projects which are of importance to the local level while allotting the budget.
Source: THT
