Politicians, bureaucrats need to rake risks to deliver results: PM Prachanda

Kathmandu, Sept. 13

Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda has said that politicians and bureaucrats should be ready to take risks to give results to the country and the people.

In a programme organised to assess the progress of the federal ministries at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) on Wednesday, he directed the employees to take risks according to their mandate, stating that the tendency to shirk responsibility will not yield results.

"The tendency to be ready to take risks will give good results. All of us should think about fulfilling our responsibilities. There is a risk in responsibility, one must be prepared to take the risk," said PM Prachanda.

A report on the 'Review of implementation of policies and programmes and budget of the Fiscal Year 2023/24'   presented by Secretary of the PMO, Dr. Ganesh Prasad Pandey, concluded that there has been a good improvement in the economic indicators this year compared to the last year.

He said that the balance of payments in FY 2021/22 was negative by Rs. 255.26 billion but it climbed to Rs. 290.52 billion in FY 2022/23. Similarly, the foreign exchange reserve is at Rs. 1539.36 billion by mid-July this year, up from last year's Rs. 1215.8 billion. Likewise, remittance inflow has also gone up to Rs. 1220.5 billion from Rs. 1007.3 billion.

Similarly, imports in the first month of FY 2022/23 were Rs. 131.3 billion against that of Rs. 129.2 billion of the same period last year.

But exports were of 14.8 billion this year while it was Rs. 13.5 billion in the first month of FY 2022/23. The budget expenditure was 1.24 per cent in the first month of the last FY and it has gone up to 1.9 per cent of the total allocation this year.

According to the report, the Ministry of Finance has submitted a new Customs Act to the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies has prepared a policy draft to promote micro, cottage and small enterprise development programmes, a 33 KVA substation has been constructed in Bhairahawa Special Economic Zone, and Block A substation has been constructed in Simra Special Economic Zone.

Likewise, the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation has mentioned that the rest of the transmission line of the Sanjen Hydropower Project (42.5 MW) has been completed, while three KM of canal construction work has been completed under the Babai Irrigation Project.

 Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 14 September 2023.