May 17, Kathmandu. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda, while addressing the Lumbini State Assembly on February 19, said,Now, smaller schemes than 30 million have been transferred to the state and local levels will be done.’
He was determined to break the tradition of not wanting to give budgets and powers to the provinces, but to send plans and budgets from the center in the name of conditional grants.
On March 18, the Prime Minister repeated the same thing while addressing the meeting of the central members and alternate central members and advisers of the Madhesh province of the Maoist center.
‘To strengthen the lower level government The center does not budget for projects smaller than 3 crores . This will be implemented from the next financial year”, said the Prime Minister.
However, as stated by the Prime Minister, the centralized thinking was not broken in the budget for the next financial year 2081/82 brought by Finance Minister Varshman Pun on 15th June. The federal government has budgeted not only 30 million, but also plans worth a few lakhs to be implemented by itself.
In the past, the Ministry of Finance seemed indifferent to returning the schemes which were sent to the state and local levels and later brought back to the union.
Even in next year’s budget The debate over which ministry will implement the retail plan of leaders and MPs It went on. 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 Local Infrastructure Department under the Ministry of Urban Development, which is implementing a budget of 8.59 billion rupees in the current financial year, has received a budget of 13.5 billion rupees, i.e. 22.18 billion rupees, in the coming year. This department has been repeatedly demanding its cancellation for doing road and bridge work by mixing the jurisdiction of the local level and the province.
CPN-UML has made the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure, led by Deputy Prime Minister Raghuvir Mahaseth, a means of taking budget for small projects.
The Alternative Subsidiary Highway Development Program, which distributes small projects under the Road Department, has received a budget of 10.67 billion rupees in the coming year, while the budget for this program in the current financial year was only 3.69 billion rupees.
Similarly, Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation and Ministry of Drinking Water are also implementing small projects themselves.
Khim Bahadur Thapa, General Secretary of the Rural Municipality National Federation of Nepal, says that contrary to the repeated promises of the Prime Minister, small programs have been kept in the budget.
“In the budget, as the Prime Minister said, it is not said that projects smaller than 30 million have been sent to the provincial and local levels. We have heard that the Ministry of the Union has kept only small programs,” he said. He said that such behavior of the federal government is a challenge to the implementation of federalism.
This trend is repeated every year to show the leaders, parliamentarians and ministers that the budget is based on their access at the local level.
Sitting on 9th January 2080 in the Singha Darbar under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister 16-point directives from the meeting on policy and program and budget preparation was prepared. In point 8 of which it is said, ‘The tendency of ministries to keep budgets for projects and programs to be implemented at provincial and local levels in the middle of the financial year and send them to provincial and local levels as conditional grants’.
In point 9 of the directive, it is mentioned that the practice of not keeping programs and projects at the federal level, and spreading the budget, which is contrary to the project classification criteria, should be completely ended.
Former Secretary Purnachandra Bhattarai says that this budget has confirmed that even if the Prime Minister wants it, the anomaly of implementing federalism will not go away. “This shows how much of a challenge it is to practice federalism naturally and successfully in Nepal,” he said.
In the past, the plans sent to the state and local levels were also brought back by the federal government. The then finance minister Janardan Sharma had announced that the state would implement water supply, tourism and urban development projects worth up to 10 million rupees, irrigation and river control projects worth up to 20 million rupees and road projects worth 50 million rupees in the budget of the financial year 2079/80.
Plans related to drinking water, tourism and urban development worth up to 5 million were sent to the local level. In this way, about 22 billion rupees were sent from the union to the state.
It was decided to implement such projects under the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport, Ministry of Water and Sanitation, Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation and Ministry of Urban Development.
Sharma also received praise for imbibing the spirit of federalism at that time. But within 3 months of the beginning of the financial year, the cabinet meeting decided to bring back the small projects worth more than 20 billion rupees under the federal government.
After the Sangh took away the projects that had reached such a low level and brought them back, there is an increase in the number of people coming to the Singh Darbar to ask for plans for such programs.
As the federal government has continued the old trend of keeping the retail program with itself to satisfy the leaders with access, the budget has started to be centralized in the union itself.
“When the Vice Chairman of the Planning Commission was his own, and the Finance Minister was his own, if the Prime Minister really wanted to, he would not have kept the budget from the union for small projects this time,” says an official of the Ministry of Finance, “The Prime Minister did one thing and did another, this is a betrayal of the provincial and local levels.”
The standard was imposed
It was not the only desire of the Prime Minister to send small projects to the local level and state. Policy arrangements were also made for this. On November 11, 2080, the Council of Ministers meeting issued the Project Classification and Distribution Standard 2080 and classified the projects worth up to 30 million to be implemented by the union, state and local levels.
In the criteria, it is mentioned that infrastructure projects worth up to 3 crores from the Union and up to 100 million from the provinces should not be implemented unless the latest technology must be used and the ability of the implementer is not compromised.
It has been arranged that projects as specified in the standards can be transferred to the level from which they are to be implemented. According to this, there is a provision that the association can send projects worth up to 30 million to the state or local level and the state can send projects up to 20 million to the local level.
This standard opened the way for implementation of projects costing up to 150 million rupees by the local level, up to 500 million rupees by the state and by the Union.
In terms of shared rights, rural municipalities should implement projects worth up to 30 million, municipalities up to 50 million, sub-metropolitan municipalities up to 100 million and metropolitan municipalities up to 150 million.
Similarly, the projects of irrigation, river control, drinking water projects, industrial areas, roads, power transmission lines have been classified into three levels.
Transmission lines smaller than 11 KV are implemented by the local level and 11 KV provinces and hydropower projects up to 1 MW are implemented by the local level and 1 to 20 MW provinces.
It is mentioned in the standard that roads up to 11 meters will be constructed by the local level, roads with a width of 11 to 22 meters will be constructed by the provinces, industrial villages will be constructed by the local level, and industrial areas will be constructed by the provinces.
It is mentioned in the standard that local level will implement drinking water projects with up to 8000 consumers in Terai Madhesh, 2000 in the mountains and 500 in the Himalayas. It is mentioned in the standards that the province will build drinking water projects with more than 8,000 to 15,000 consumers in Terai Madhesh, more than 2,000 to 5,000 consumers in the mountains and more than 500 to 1,000 consumers in the mountains.
Arrangements for implementation of irrigation projects by the local level to provide irrigation facilities in up to 500 hectares in the plains, 50 hectares in the hills and 25 hectares in the mountains are also in the standard.
In the standard, it is mentioned that the project of providing irrigation facilities on the land of more than 500 hectares up to 5000 hectares in the plains, up to 100 hectares in the mountains and more than 50 hectares in the mountains, and up to 50 hectares in the mountains will be implemented through the province.
This standard has been included in the next financial year’s budget. The association has arranged for the implementation of projects such as roads, bridges, water supply, tourism infrastructure, irrigation etc. through the association.
Keeping the small schemes in the budget of the federal government, the government has reduced the amount going to the state and local level from the distribution and grant at the state and local level in the next financial year.
In the current financial year, the government had made arrangements to transfer the budget of Rs.
But next year, a total of 5 trillion 67 billion rupees will be transferred to the provincial and local levels, according to the budget statement brought by Finance Minister Varshman Pun on Tuesday.
In the budget of the next financial year, the grants given by the federal government to the states and local levels have been increased by the same number only. In the budget statement, it is estimated that 1 trillion 59 billion will be transferred from revenue distribution to the provincial and local levels. It was estimated that 1 trillion 73 billion 92 million rupees will be transferred to the state and local levels from the revenue distribution in the current financial year.
According to Finance Minister Pun, 60 billion rupees have been allocated for the state and 88 billion rupees for the local level under the financial equalization grant for the coming year.
In the current financial year, 58.67 billion rupees were allocated to the state and 87.35 billion rupees to the local level for the equalization subsidy.
25 billion 24 billion rupees have been allocated for the state and 2 trillion 8 billion 88 billion rupees for the local level towards conditional grants. In this way, only conditional grants will reach 2 trillion 34 billion 73 crore rupees at the provincial and local levels.
In the current fiscal year, a total of 27.27 billion 61 billion was allocated to the state and 1.91 billion 89 billion to the state and 1.91 billion to the local level for conditional grants.
6 billion 300 million has been allocated for the provinces and 7 billion for the local level from supplementary grants. In the current financial year, a total of 13.27 billion was allocated to the province and 7.5 billion to the local level towards supplementary grants.
A budget of 4.4 billion for the province and 8.5 billion for the local level has been allocated for special grants. In the current fiscal year, 4.46 billion and 8.73 billion were allocated to the state and local levels for special grants, respectively.
In this way, the Union Government has brought a budget to keep a large part of the resources in its own hands. Which is contrary to the Prime Minister’s repeated promises.
An official of the Ministry of Finance claims that the total cost of small budget projects going to state and local levels is more than 100 million. “Even the projects with a budget of lakhs are such that they have to work with an additional budget in the coming year,” an official said. According to that official, the standard should be corrected for this.
