Govt’s development expenditure limited to 60pc of allocation in 2020-21

KATHMANDU: The federal government has managed to spend only 60 percent of the development budget in 2020-21 fiscal year.

The statistics maintained by the Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO) for FY 2020-21 shows that budget expenditure in the year stood at Rs 1,474.64 billion, 309 billion up from Rs 1,091.13 of the previous FY.

The FCGO statistics recorded that the current expenditure stood at Rs 851.4 billion in the FY 2020-21 up from Rs 784.14 billion of the previous FY. Similarly, capital expenditure stood at Rs 227.7 billion, which remained just 28 billion rupees more than the sum of Rs 189.08 billion of previous FY. The current expenditure got limited to 89 per cent of the target.

The capital expenditure – crucial spending for development- has significantly increased despite the pandemic-driven economic disruption. In the previous FY, the spending was 46.34 percent of its actual target. Meanwhile, in the current FY, the proportion sprang up to 60 percent of the targeted amount.

However, financial expenditure has comparatively shrunk in comparison to the expenditure of the previous FY. The financial expenditure stood at Rs. 100.9 billion which is down from previous Rs 117.90 billion.