To finance the reconstruction, partial to complete cuts have been made in current expenses, including food, travel, vehicles, and furniture purchases.
The Gandaki Provincial Government is preparing to cut about 2.5 billion rupees from the budget allocated for the current fiscal year to reconstruct physical infrastructure damaged during the Gen-G movement.
The Cabinet meeting held on Kartik 11 had decided to partially and completely cut the budget allocated for current headings including tourism leave, vehicle purchase, and visits. Accordingly, software purchase expenses will be cut by 80 percent, monitoring-evaluation, travel and newspaper expenses by 50-50 percent, food and miscellaneous expenses by 25-25 percent, and fuel and vehicle maintenance expenses by 20-20 percent, said Economic Affairs Minister Dr. Takraj Gurung.
The government plans to cut the budget for public property maintenance in ministries that were not damaged by the Genji movement by 50-50 percent. There was no material damage to the Ministry of Physical, Health, and Agriculture of Gandaki during the Genji movement. He said that no new vehicles will be purchased for others except for those who were damaged by fire.
He said that other ministries except for health will not purchase any new machinery and equipment, and other ministries and offices except those that were damaged will not purchase furniture. The government estimates that by cutting current expenditure in this way, 2 billion rupees will be saved. ‘The provincial government has suffered a loss of about 2 billion rupees during the movement. It is estimated that the same amount will be saved by cutting current expenditure,’ said Minister Gurung. ‘The positive side is that we will not cut any development budget that connects with the people.’
The provincial government had decided to restructure the administration in July by abolishing 9 offices, merging 32 offices to 17, and cutting 185 posts. This will save 2.5 billion rupees, he said, and spend it on reconstruction.
The Gandaki government had allocated 31 billion 979 million rupees for the current fiscal year. Of this, 12 billion 636 million rupees have been allocated for current expenditure and 19 billion 933 million rupees have been allocated for capital expenditure.
