Kathmandu: Finance Minister Rameshore Khanal has formed a three-member task force to cut small-scale projects and arrange resources for the elections scheduled in March.
Ministry spokesperson Tanka Prasad Pandey told Clickmandu that the decision was made immediately after Khanal assumed office on Monday.
The task force is led by Joint Secretary Suman Dahal, head of the Budget and Programme Division, with two other members: Joint Secretary Uttar Kumar Khatri, head of the Revenue Division, and Joint Secretary Dhaniram Sharma, head of the Foreign Aid Coordination Division. The committee will recommend how to mobilize resources for the House of Representatives election scheduled for March 5.
On the same day he assumed office at Singha Durbar, Minister Khanal decided not to implement small, scattered projects. He explained that the allocations for such projects would be cut because government buildings and infrastructure damaged during the Gen Z movement must be rebuilt and this requires a large budget.
While taking office, Khanal said he was assuming responsibility at the Finance Ministry in extraordinary circumstances and that since a new leadership will come after elections within six months, he intends to do as much as possible in that period.
He stated, “Our priorities now are to address the demands of the youth, hold elections, and carry out reconstruction. To achieve these, expenses must be reduced, and therefore we had to decide against implementing small projects.”
According to ministry estimates, his first decision will save the country around 100 billion rupees. Cutting the budget for small projects in the current fiscal year 2025/26 alone will benefit the state by this amount. The Finance Ministry believes that discontinuing such projects will cause no major harm, and the saved funds can be redirected to reconstruction of public infrastructure.
Small projects are those with budgets below 30 million rupees. The federal budget for the current fiscal year includes thousands of such programmes, some even with allocations as low as 100,000 rupees. The ministry argues that these projects lack long-term impact, so cutting their budgets will not result in significant losses. The Ministry of Urban Development, in fact, had even inserted projects worth just 1,000 rupees to siphon budget funds for reallocation.
Khanal said halting these petty projects would free up 100 billion rupees in resources. He also clarified that the current budget had not allocated funds for elections. Since elections must now be held within six months due to the change in government, he needed to ensure resource mobilization. Cutting these projects is the chosen solution.
He emphasized that the government has no plans to introduce a supplementary budget. Instead, it will operate within the existing budget, avoiding projects introduced under political pressure without proper studies or preparation.
Minister Khanal said, “To hold elections within six months and to rebuild public property, we have two options: first, to cut unnecessary allocations within the budget, and second, to withdraw funds allocated for projects pushed into the project bank at the last moment under political pressure, without any study or readiness.”
Comment Here