OPMCM directs ministries to get programmes approved by NPC

Ministries have been asked to get their programmes of fiscal budget 2016-17 approved by the National Planning Commission (NPC) before the start of the new fiscal to expedite the budget implementation process. Chief Secretary Somlal Subedi has written to all the ministries to get their programmes approved from the NPC by the end of this fiscal so that the ministries can authorise the line agencies to implement the programmes from the first day of the next fiscal. The letter from the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers (OPMCM) has been circulated to the ministries after the budget was approved from the Parliament on Saturday. However, NPC has said that the process of approving the programmes will start only from the beginning of new fiscal as the ministries will receive authority to mobilise next fiscal’s budget then. “There is a practice of approving the programmes after the ministries receive authority to mobilise the budget from the beginning of the fiscal,” said NPC Joint Secretary Gopinath Mainali. After the line ministries started getting involved in finalising the budget programmes along with the NPC and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) since last two years, the MoF and the NPC had decided to skip the process of getting NPC’s endorsements for the programmes again. There is a practice of finalising all the programmes of the fiscal budget through tripartite meetings — between officials of NPC, MoF and concerned ministries — after the MoF introduced Line Ministry Budget Information System (LMBIS). LMBIS is web-based system, where the line ministries can enter the programmes and procurement plans during the budget making process. Based on this understanding, tripartite meetings have been held during the budget formulation process since last two fiscals. The MoF and NPC are reportedly willing to skip NPC’s endorsement again. But, the ministries have been complying with the provision of Financial Provision Rules, 2007. As per the provision, central-level projects shall be approved by the NPC. Hence, the ministries have been forwarding their programmes to NPC for approval. Source: The Himalayan Times