"Spend Your Budget on Time or We'll Direct It Elsewhere": Finance Minister Sharma to Ministries

An inter-ministerial discussion and interaction program on capital expenditure was held at the Ministry of Finance on Friday. On the occasion, Finance Minister Janardan Sharma urged the various ministries to spend 30 percent of the budget of their respective ministries by Poush.

Stating that liquidity has also been affected due to untimely capital expenditure, Minister Sharma has directed the ministries to spend on development as soon as possible. "I express my commitment that the Ministry of Finance should not, cannot, and will not delay the implementation of budgets," he said. He also expressed his commitment to coordinate all the work required by the Ministry of Finance to implement the budget expenditure on time.

Minister Sharma also warned the secretaries that if any expenditure is not met during the quarterly review of budget expenditure, it will be reverted. He said, "The budget will not be released in Ashar. If there is no expenditure, we will send it to the place where it will be spent."

"Take the budget, spend it timely," said Minister Sharma, "You can't hold the budget idle if you can't turn up necessary expenditure." Similarly, Minister Sharma also directed the ministries to send a reply to the Ministry of Finance within three days of receipt of the file.

Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Pampha Bhusal, Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Renukumari Yadav, Minister for Health Virodh Khatiwada, and Minister for Drinking Water Umakanta Chaudhary among others were present on the occasion.