November 4: Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel has started reviewing the progress made in the implementation of the budget of the current fiscal year 2020/21.

Poudel, who was appointed as finance minister in mid-October, has started reviewing the progress with officials of various ministries.

In the first phase, Finance Minister has held discussions regarding the implementation of budget – especially the capital expenditure – with the officials of the Ministry of Urban Development as well as the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, informed Yamlal Bhusal, joint secretary at finance ministry.

Several ministries have not been able to perform their works in accordance to the target citing the coronavirus pandemic. In this context, Finance Minister Poudel has reportedly instructed the line ministries not to delay the implementation of budget on the pretext of Covid-19 crisis.

He has also directed the ministries to complete their work in order to meet the target as per the work plan.

During Monday’s meeting with authorities of the two ministries, Finance Minister Poudel instructed them to effectively implement the policies and programmes announced in the budget for the prevention coronavirus.

During the meeting, secretaries of the two ministries requested the finance minister to facilitate in implementing the current budget instead of bringing new policies and programmes. They also stressed on the need to implement small and petty programmes through the provincial governments and the local units instead of the federal ministries.

According to the finance ministry, the government has been able to spend only Rs 201 billion out of the total budget of Rs 1474 billion in the first three months of the current fiscal year. The government’s expenditure is just 13.63 percent of the total budget. The government had set a target to spend 20 percent of the total budget in the first quarter.

The current expenditure of the government during the review period is Rs 182 billion while the capital expenditure is just Rs 15.4 billion.