The Finance Committee of the Legislature-Parliament grilled officials of the National Planning Commission (NPC) and the Ministry of Finance about the non-expenditure of budget allocated under the capital expenditure. 

A meeting of the Committee held Wednesday under the chair of its President Prakash Jwala voiced for determining the reason why the budget allocated to the NPC under the capital expenditure remained unutilised and approved development projects were not implemented. 

In response, NPC Vice Chair Dr Yubraj Khatiwada said waiting for an authority to implement the approved projects was the main reason behind the delay in the implementation of the projects. Lack of cooperation between the line ministries and local bodies, the April 25 (2015) earthquake, the culture of orgasining strikes and shutdowns, and the border blockade in the south inflicted adverse impact on many projects including Upper Tamakoshi Hydro Project. 

Finance Secretary Lokdarshan Regmi said the current expenditure until the mid march was 39.4 per cent, the capital expenditure was recorded at 11. 92 per cent while the financial management expenditure was 31.77 per cent and all these put overall expenditure at 31.22 in average. 

The development projects failing to take the pace after the earthquake, obstructions on the supplies system and a delay in budget allocation from the Ministry of Finance were the main reasons behind a slow progress on the development projects. 

Similarly, former Finance Minister Dr Ram Sharan Mahat who was also present in the meeting insisted on identifying those factors causing the delay in granting authority to implement the projects. He was of the view of making special efforts to promote good governance and of depolitising development projects. 

Likewise, former Finance Minister Surendra Pandey said it was a matter of concern that foreign monetary assistance received to implement development projects remained unspent. The government decision to repeal the programmes approved by the local bodies to use the local resources including of sand and pebbles in the name of environmental conversation hampered the development projects at local level. He called for blacklisting the projects not executed on time. 

Former Finance Minister Bharat Mohan Adhikari expressed his concerns over the return of foreign assistance due to the non-implementation of the projects. RSS