By Our Reporter
Finance Minister Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat has revised the budget by significantly reducing the revenue and expenditure estimates six months after he had tabled the budget in the parliament.
In a half-yearly review of the budget, he reduced the size of the budget by about Rs. 221 billion to Rs. 1,530.26 billion for the current fiscal year. It is 87.38 per cent of the initially allocated budget. He revised the budget after the government failed to collect the target revenue and because of poor expenditure.
The government had presented a budget of Rs. 1,751.31 billion for the current fiscal year on May 29, 2023.
Organizing a press conference at the Ministry of Finance on Monday, Finance Minister Dr. Mahat said that the government reduced the estimation of income and expenditure for the current fiscal year by analysing the half-yearly progress of both income and expenditure.
He said that the estimate was revised so that 88.84 per cent (Rs. 107.45 billion) would be spent on the heading of recurrent expenditure, 84.13 per cent (Rs. 254.13 billion) on the capital expenditure, and 87.39 per cent (Rs. 268.67 billion) on the financial arrangement of the initial allocation.
By the end of the current fiscal year, it is estimated that around Rs. 1,309.30 billion will be arranged from government sources (revenue and domestic borrowing) Rs. 40.12 billion from foreign grants and Rs. 180.83 billion from foreign loans.
The government had set a target of raising Rs. 1,240 billion from revenue, Rs. 49.94 billion from foreign grants, Rs. 212 billion from foreign loans and Rs. 240 billion from domestic borrowing.
Dr. Mahat said that while trying to improve, the government had to reduce the expenditure estimate because the income could not increase as per the target.
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