By Our Reporter

With only 64 days remaining before the current fiscal year 2021/22 comes to an end, the federal government has been able to spend only 31 per cent of the capital budget. 

Of the total capital allocation of Rs. 378 billion, Rs. 117.1 billion is spent till Monday, according to the daily receipts and payments status report of the Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO). 

As per general calculations, the government has to spend about Rs. 4.07 billion in a day to mobilise the unspent Rs. 260.9 billion capital budget. 

This is less than the expenditure made in the same period of the last fiscal year 2020/21 when about Rs. 122.1 billion – about 34.6 per cent of the total allocation – was utilised. 

The local election and 'construction holiday' are attributed to this poor expenditure. However, when no government in the past was unable to spend the allotted capital budget, the election and the construction holiday alone cannot be blamed for the poor expenditure. 

 Construction entrepreneurs have announced a construction holiday and halted all development works across the country citing the increase in the price of construction materials. It has affected about 3700 ongoing construction projects worth Rs. 600 billion.

Of the financing budget of Rs. 189.4 billion, only 38.91 per cent is spent. The financing budget is used to repay the capital and interest of the loan obtained by the government and to make the investment. 

Finance Minister Janardan Sharma had announced a plan to spend 10 per cent of the development budget each month after the festival season in October last year but the development ministries have 

failed to execute the programmes they planned, resulting in poor capital expenditure. 

FM Sharma has also been holding multiple meetings with the stakeholders including the ministries and private sector to facilitate the smooth progress in development work. However, this effort has not yielded any results so far.