Ministries asked to get all projects approved by NPC in two days
KATHMANDU, SEP 30 -
Finance Minster Shankar Prasad Koirala on Sunday asked line ministries to get all programmes and projects approved by the National Planning Commission (NPC) within the next two days, amid reports that 98 percent of the projects have already been approved.
Despite initial requests to complete the approval process by July end, many projects remained unapproved by the NPC due to procedural delays. Such delays have been the cause of low capital expenditure in recent years.
At the review meeting of big projects, held at the Finance Ministry, Koirala asked the ministries to complete awarding contracts by mid-December and solve the problems related to land acquisition and the extraction of pebbles. Many big projects have been facing problems in acquiring land for the development of the projects due to a high demand of compensation from locals.
He also asked them to focus their attention on increasing capital budget and minimising the recurrent budget. Asking the secretaries to carry out on-the-spot monitoring of the progress of the projects, he also directed them to complete a review of the projects under them within the first week of each ministry and send the report regarding the progress to the finance ministry.
During the programme, the National Planning Commission Vice-chairman Rabindra Kumar Shakya said that delays in the programme approval could be lessened by discontinuing the current system of requiring approval from the centre for district based projects. Finance Secretary Shanta Raj Subedi said the finance ministry has created monitoring structures which have started monitoring the projects.
Tax collection at Rs 47.89b
The government has collected a total of Rs 47.89 billion revenues as of September 22. According to the finance ministry, expenditure during the period remained at Rs 21.86 billion, with a majority having recurrent expenditure. The government currently has Rs 51.74 billion.
Source: The Kathmandu Post
