30 June, Kathmandu. For the next financial year 2081/82, the Ministry of Urban Development has allocated a budget of 1 lakh rupees to upgrade Koyapani-Chautarabhanjyang-Dhawa-Baluwatar road in Gorkha.
Gorkha’s Bimire-Darmichour-Ampipal-Simpani road and Satdobato-Baghdanda-Gaikhur road have also got a budget of one lakh rupees each. Seeing such allocation
Syangja’s Putlibazar-Sataun-Daraun-Panchamul-Aarchour road and Tindobato-Chitadanda-Sanglin Maidan road have also received a budget of Rs 1 lakh each through the rural road network improvement project.
A budget of one lakh rupees has also been kept for projects including the upgradation of Telkani road in Bhadrapur of Jhapa and the construction of Shaheed Smriti Park and assembly hall in Lasune of Tehrathum.
The Ministry of Urban Development of the Federal Government has allocated a budget of only 1 lakh rupees under 90 headings. While it is clear from the nature of the project that those projects will not be completed with one lakh rupees. Economically speaking, infrastructure like roads, public buildings, grounds, parks, auditoriums, temples cannot be prepared for one lakh rupees.
The purpose of keeping even a small budget in a project that does not cover the budget of lakhs is to maintain the political influence of leaders who have access from the union to the state and local levels. And the other purpose is to make the situation easier in the future and create a legal basis for taking more budget. With this practice, it seems that the way is easily prepared to exchange money in an arbitrary manner in the future.
After the month of October, the Ministry of Finance will easily allow the budget under one heading of the relevant ministry to be spent under another heading. 
The budget is in the hands of the Union
After seven years of practicing federalism, the practice of keeping even one lakh schemes in the hands of the union is not new. However, since last February, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda has repeatedly said that projects smaller than 30 million will be handed over to the provincial and local levels. However, the Prime Minister’s announcement of the budget for the next financial year 2081/82 brought by Finance Minister Varshman Pun on 15th June is seen as contrary.
In the next year’s budget as well, there was speculation as to which ministry would implement the retail plan of leaders and MPs. Finance Minister Barshman Pun and Urban Development Minister Dhan Bahadur Budha have put many such retail schemes in the budget of the Ministry of Urban Development.
The Ministry of Physical Infrastructure headed by Deputy Prime Minister Raghuveer Mahaseth has also allocated the budget to many small projects. The Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, Women, Children and Senior Citizens and the Ministry of Water Supply have also followed the same path.
Speaking in the House of Representatives on Wednesday on the budget of the Ministry of Urban Development, CPN Maoist Center MP Purna Bahadur Gharti said that the budget was contrary to the announcement of the Prime Minister and Finance Minister. He presented the data that there are 91 plans worth one lakh only in the budget of the Ministry of Urban Development.
He said that 24 projects worth Rs 300,000 and 177 projects worth Rs 500,000 have been put in place.
For the next financial year 2081/82, the Ministry of Urban Development has selected about 400 schemes with a budget of less than 1 million. In the ministry’s budget book (red book), 387 schemes have been seen with a budget of less than 1 million. Experts say that most of the budget plans put by the ministry from 1 lakh to 9 lakh have trampled the very essence of federalism.
Local government expert Khimlal Devkota said that it is the desire of the ministers to distribute the scheme of lakhs from Singh Darbar and to go to Kathmandu to receive it. Commenting that leaders and employees living in Kathmandu have forgotten that there is federalism in the country, he said that the thinking and working style of leaders and high-ranking employees are the main factors in spoiling the practice of federalism.
Leaders are working to enter the wards with retail plans from the federal ministry. They don’t trust the provincial and local levels’, he says.
Another bet with plans of lakhs
According to an official of the Ministry of Urban Development, there is a special meaning in having a plan worth one lakh. Due to the budget ceiling, the projects that cannot be included in the red book have been included in the plan by allocating 1 lakh only for the purpose of covering the projects by setting up programs and titles in the budget.
“Related offices put plans within the ceiling, but not all the plans wanted by the leaders and employees can be included in the ceiling,” said an official, “In such a case, a budget of 1-2 lakhs is set for the program and its title. Money can be transferred.’
An official of the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure says that this will be done only for the purpose of including the plans in the Red Book, which have been requested by party leaders and workers and have not been included in the budget program. According to him, the distorted practice of transferring money from other titles to titles with small budgets by creating favorable conditions in the future is going on.
“The plans chosen by the leader are given priority, when the employees try to implement the program, there is no budget”, an official said, “If only the name and title of the program can be preserved now, it will be possible to put the budget in the future”.
Even when some leaders are criticized for spending too much budget in their districts, they make headlines with such schemes of lakhs. “The leader does not want the budget in July, he arranges it by the end of Dashain and pours it into such topics from the budget of other topics”, said the official, “this is also a way to deflect criticism and introduce himself as a powerful leader who can increase the budget.”
According to the employees, it is clear that the budget of those projects will be manipulated in the future by keeping the projects in the union without giving them to the state and local levels. “If it was possible to enter projects worth less than 1 lakh in the ministry’s budgetary information management system, they would have been kept,” a technical official said, “only because they could not be entered, plans up to 1 lakh were included in the budget.”
According to him, some titles are kept in the budget even by maintaining a ‘zero’ budget in order to save the titles. “Even if a plan of lakhs is inserted now, there is a risk of taking a budget of crores in the future,” he said.
