While Singhadurbar is working days on end to give final touches to the budget for a new fiscal year, officials at Nepal Government’s various development agencies, especially the Department of Road, are busy calling for tenders to spend the huge amount of unspent budget allocated to them during the last budget announcement.
If you happen to venture out, braving the intermittent rains brought by the pre-monsoon season, you will see the government bodies’ spectacular inefficiencies on display.
Signage that says the roads are blocked and that construction work is in progress is a common sight at many of the valley’s roads currently. The sight is also the same in several other parts of the country.
During the last budget announcement, Department of Roads (DoR), which falls under the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure & Transport, received a total budget of Rs 40 billion, a sum allocated for construction and upgradation of road infrastructure in the country.
However, even on the 11th month of the running fiscal year, the department has only spent Rs 16 billion or 40 per cent of the total sum.
“The department plans to spend an additional Rs 19 billion during the coming month before the new budget is announced,” says Daya Kant Jha, spokesperson for DoR. “This will make the total amount spent Rs 35 billion, or 85 per cent of the total budget.”
If the Department of Roads works to spend 85 per cent of its total budget before the new budget is announced like it claims, it will have to spend close to Rs 1 billion every day, for the coming month.
The resulting haste, to complete work before the end of the fiscal year, means that the upgradation of new roads are expedited without being given much attention to adequate craftsmanship.
While Nepal government’s official guideline states that the minimum thickness of asphalt for roads newly blacktopped should be 44mm, most of these new roads have a thickness of less than 15mm.
A thickness of 15 mm is generally used to layer already blacktopped road for maintenance purposes. This practice, also know as ‘carpet pitch’, is increasingly being used for most of the new roads.
This trend of expediting work in the last remaining months of a fiscal year is a long-running one. If the DoR works to spend 85 per cent of its total budget before the new budget is announced like it claims, it will have to spend close to Rs 1 billion every day, for the coming month.
“We are currently upgrading many of the valley’s roads and several roads outside the capital like Dharan-Chatara, Belahiya-Butwal and Nepalgunj-Kohalpur,” says Jha. “Our target does not seem too far-fetched.”
