Official records show that only 58 percent of the capital budget has been spent so far. The district was allocated Rs 147.7 million in the capital budget for the current fiscal year 2013-14. The money needs to be spent on construction of physical infrastructure.

Shreedhar Gyawali, chief of the District Treasury Controller Office (DTCO), said the capital expenditure appeared small due to delays in making payment. According to him, most of the targeted development

programmes have been completed.

Local Development Officer Bishnu Dutta Gautam said that they were issuing payment as per the law. “Unlike in the previous system where payment for development projects used to be made in advance, we have been

paying the contractors after the completion of the project,” he said.

“We are presently making payment for development projects related to rural drinking water and development of the constituent areas even though the work had been completed by the second quarter of the fiscal year,” he added.

Gyawali said they expected to spend 90 percent of the capital budget by the end of this fiscal. “We will have to pay around Rs 10 million for the completed work within the next 11 days,” he added.

According to the record of the DTCO, 86 percent of the Rs 1.97 billion allocated for recurrent expenditure for 31 government offices in the district has been spent as of now. The total expenditure may reach 95 percent by the end of this fiscal year considering the rate of the current daily expenditure, said the DTCO.