Budget size likely to go up by Rs 100b

The size of the budget of current fiscal year may inflate by Rs80 billion to Rs100 billion, as the government is mulling over introducing a supplementary budget by incorporating excess savings of the last fiscal year and revising the revenue collection target of this fiscal year. The plan to raise the size of the budget has been floated at a time when this fiscal year’s budget of Rs1,048.9 billion launched by the previous government under the CPN-UML was termed “distributive” by many.  “We are laying the groundwork to raise the size of this fiscal year’s budget as treasury surplus of last fiscal year surpassed our expectation. Also, we have room to revise the revenue collection target,” said Min Bahadur Shrestha, vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission. “Considering these scenarios, the size of current fiscal year’s budget may increase by Rs80 billion to Rs100 billion.” The government, in the last fiscal year, had predicted the treasury surplus to hover around Rs59 billion. But actual savings of the government stood at around Rs127 billion due to failure to make use of available funds, especially funds allocated for capital budget, on time. This means the government now has around Rs 68 billion in extra funds at its disposal, which can be incorporated in the budget of this fiscal year. In the last fiscal year, the government had revised revenue collection target downwards to Rs460 billion from Rs475 billion following trade embargo imposed by India. But actual revenue collection in the year stood at Rs482.7 billion. This fiscal year’s revenue collection target, as per announcement made through the budget, stands at Rs565.9 billion. “This fiscal year’s revenue collection target was fixed on the basis of last fiscal year’s revised revenue collection target of Rs460 billion. Since actual revenue collection in the last fiscal year surpassed the estimate by around Rs22 billion, we have adequate space to jack up this fiscal year’s revenue collection target,” said Shrestha, adding, “A huge chunk of funds that are likely to be added to this fiscal year’s budget will be spent on post-earthquake reconstruction works.” Source: ekantipur