Budget, the only thing the government does every year. It is
the lifeblood of the country. The way it is made is the guiding force for the
people and the whole country as whole. The most important aspects of livelihood
of every people; their income and expenses and overall the country’s livelihood
of earning, spending the developing of the country as a whole. How the country
collects funds for its development and regular operational running and where to
spend the finance collected depends on the budget, the National Budget.
Budget is the quantitative plan of the financial assets of
an individual, organization or the country as a whole for a certain period of
time. It is normally made on a yearly basis and defines each and every plan of
the entity for that period of time. The government or national budget is the
biggest among all the budgets. It shows the various plans of the government and
related quantitative definitions of the plans and policies. It defines all the
sources of incomes and headings of expenses. Any government budget can be
segregated into operational, capital investment and cash flow budget according
to their tenure and areas or sectors of assortment. Budget are for definitive
period of time normally for a year and the plans are set up according to the
ways to meet the targets and proper utilization of the budget values. It helps
to provide the overall progress and result achievement of the last year and
make out new plans for the coming years.
As we know Nepal government has just published the budget
for 2013-14. It seems we are still in a phase of making out the budget
declaration only. The budget heads seems of high priority and on the next
year’s as well we get the same heads with increased amount of budget and the
result just are too unsatisfactory. Most of the plans just don’t start up and
the started projects just don’t end up good enough. The money goes out but
nowhere to the respective areas. The development budget just go untouched and
the most of the budget gets transferred from heading to heading and just got
off the sheet with an ease.
Our budget year start up from mid July and end up at another mid July. Most of the
budget incomes and financial sources are revenues and the rest are foreign
grants and loans. As the past years’ budget this year’s budget is basically the
current operational budget. Low amount of finances have been supplied to the
development heads leading to the low development process. There are more of the
promises, which will be difficult to keep up with like, water supply,
irrigation, energy, railways and highways. Though these headings seem
achievable and plausible but still the implementation is our worst part. We
always play the nice budget game but we loose in the game design. This is due
to the fact that we don’t have any responsible and dependable entity that can
take care of the people’s money. Under this year a huge amount of money is for
the election of Constituent Assembly. The CA was to set up the Constituent of
the country years back and still our government is unable to do from the years
time and again we are to elect the another CA members. The energy sector have
got more budget than that of the last year’s. It has been increased to 30
billiion from that of 26 billion from the 2012-13 budget. Lets hope they will
be properly utilized and we won’t have to wait longer hours to put our switches
on. Various hydropower and alternative energy projects have been listed and
they will be served up well by the budget in this year. Water supply and
irrigation have also got some significance. The agriculture sector has got an
increased amount of 21 billion huge. The education and health sectors have got
their good shares as well. Overall the budget has been allocated to more or
less all the economic sectors of the country. From transportation to
agriculture and election to education all in all are reached.
The main problem of this budget as the previous ones is the
proper implementation of the funds. Most of the development budgets won’t be
used and most of them are misused in other areas. Due to the lack of
transparent system and strong authority the budget amounts get misused from
time and again and under heading to heading. The budget get formed under the
political influences and they got allocated to their priorities rather the
overall country’s needs and areas of requirement. Not only that the political
influences are so powerful that the sources also get segregated for the plans
and policies. The most weak part in our economy is to base the budget itself in foreign loans, grants and financial
assistance from international community. The only solution to this issue is
that we should have some strong budget making authority rather than the
political government. There should be some strong presence of budget making
authority up to the local level rather than
the ministries and political headquarters. Until the local level could
be able to participate in the budget making process the development of the
nation will always get stuck.
Above all, whatever the budget will be the only best way to
get the proper result is via proper implementation of the plans and funds.
Otherwise the budget will be in papers and reports only rather than in the
ground root development of the country.
Note: You can get all the details on budget on http://mof.gov.np
