Kathmandu, Jun 19
The state governments have failed to be introduce new
programmes and strategy for development and resource mobilisation, concluded
the experts.
They termed the budget of the seven sub-national bodies for
the coming fiscal year 2020/21, announced on 16 June, traditional and
unrealistic that would ultimately fail to address the present health crisis as
well as address the development and employment gaps in the respective
provinces.
Experts also said that the states' exercise to imitate the
policy and programmes of the federal government would lead them nowhere since
they did not have the mechanism and institutions to execute such programmes
while the central government had not been significantly successful in
implementing its own development projects.
"The provincial budget has become the victim of the
lack of institutional and technical capabilities in the states and poor
budgeting process," said economist Dr. Dilli Raj Khanal.
He said that the capital expenditure status of the provinces
was very poor as they could spend only about 20 per cent of the development
budget in the current fiscal year before the beginning of the COVID-19
pandemic.
"Their budget is not realistic. There are some
programmes to address the immediate need such as creating health infrastructure
and employment generation through the investment in agriculture but I have a
doubt about their impactful execution," said Dr. Khanal who had led the Public
Expenditure Review Commission this year.
Former Vice-Chairman of the National Planning Commission
Prof. Dr. Govinda Raj Pokharel said that the state budgets should have been
focused to containing the infection of coronavirus, its treatment, relief and
employment creation but they continued with the popular programmes following
the track of the previous years instead.
"Since they failed to spend the budget in the last one
and a half years, they should have come up with programmes to address the
policy bottlenecks and create institutional structures," he said.
According to Dr. Pokharel, the states are just functioning
as subordinate bodies of the federal government expecting the grants from the
centre so they need better alternatives of sources.
Economist Keshav Acharya said that provincial governments
miserably failed in two fronts: creating innovative programmes as per local
needs without following the policy of the centre, and forging cooperation among
the local governments in creating better infrastructure.
"The sub-national bodies couldn't focus on revenue
mobilisation and failed to use their rights enshrined in the constitution,"
he said. "Meanwhile, the federal government did not extend its cooperation
to the states in enhancing their technical capabilities in terms of formulating
the budget and spending it," he said.
Former Member of the NPC Dr. Chandra Mani Adhikari also questioned
the structure and capability of the states in terms of mobilising the resources
and utilisation of the budget. "Given the past experiences, there is no
high hope about the provincial budget. The budget has also failed to connect
with the policy and programmes," he said.
However, the experts said that the priority to programmes
meant to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, agriculture and employment generation
were some good components in the provincial budget.
Dr. Adhikari said that the aims of the budgets were good.
"Setting priorities in line with the federal government in the time of
crisis may help in fighting the pandemic together," he said.
Likewise, Acharya said that promotion of agriculture and
programmes to create storage for agricultural goods and grants for the inputs
are promising programmes in the budgets.
He especially appreciated State 5 for not allocating budget
for the parliamentarians' individual development funds terming it a 'daring
step'.
Dr. Khanal said that some large infrastructure projects
included in the provincial budgets were good but he suggested creating a
streamlining agency to create harmony among the budgets of the federal and
state governments.
The combined budget of seven states for the next year
amounts to Rs. 264.20 billion, Rs. 5.37 billion less than the current fiscal
year. However, the budget of Bagmati and Sudurpaschim has increased
significantly. Bagmati has the largest budget size with Rs. 51.42 billion
followed by State 1 Rs. 40.89 billion; State 5 Rs. 36.35 billion; and Gandaki
Rs. 34.84 billion. Likewise, Karnali announced the budget of Rs. 33.74 billion,
State 2 Rs. 33.56 billion and Sudurpaschim Rs. 33.38 billion.
No comments:
Post a Comment