January 24: The government has fallen short of its revenue collection target in the first six months of the current fiscal year by Rs 161 billion. During the review period, the government collected Rs 490 billion against the target of Rs 651 billion, shared Joint Secretary Anand Kafle, who is also the spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance.

The government’s capital expenditure in the first six months of the current fiscal year remained dismal at Rs 53.45 billion out of the allocated amount of Rs 100.8 billion for the review period, Spokesperson Kafle briefed Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel during a discussion at the Ministry of Finance held on Monday on the topic of overall economic situation of the country and implementation of the budget.

Kafle further said that the current expenditure of the government during the review period was Rs 455 billion out of the allocated amount of Rs 594 billion.

During the discussion, Finance Minister Paudel instructed the secretaries to increase capital expenditure and reduce current expenditure.  He stressed on the need to give special priority to capital expenditure and to maintain strict revenue management.    
The finance minister instructed the concerned authorities to spend the funds allocated under all the headings only on the same heading, discourage the expenditure of current nature, and not to seek additional funds under any heading except for mandatory obligations.    
Meanwhile, Finance Secretary Toyam Raya said that the ministry has already started adopting austerity measures and cost reduction plans and is expecting other ministries to follow suit.    
Revenue Secretary Dr Ram Prasad Ghimire requested all agencies to cooperate in controlling revenue leakage while working proactively in non-tax revenue collection.