KMC initiates budget amendment process

KATHMANDU: Kathmandu Metropolitan City (KMC) has initiated the process of reviewing its budget for fiscal year 2024/25.

Deputy Mayor Sunita Dangol presented the budget amendment proposal at the 16th session of the KMC Municipal Assembly on Sunday.

“Based on the KMC’s annual procurement plan and quarterly progress reports, some programs need to be adjusted to achieve the goals set by the approved policies and programs for the current fiscal year,” Deputy Mayor Dangol said, addressing the assembly. “This amendment proposal is necessary because some planned projects cannot be executed, some require more time due to financial procedures, some need to be conducted as multi-year projects, and some allocations show either surplus or deficit. Additionally, some essential projects and programs require new budget allocations.”

The government conducts a mid-term review of its budget in the second week of February.

Dangol said the budget amendment proposal was presented to the municipal assembly after extensive discussions and analysis with subject experts, thematic committees of the metropolis, and various other committees. The Budget and Program Formulation Committee and the Municipal Executive of the KMC earlier unanimously passed the proposal.

The deputy mayor has proposed reducing the budget allocation for the economic development sector to Rs. 724.371 million from the earlier earmarked Rs. 729.971 million. Likewise, she has proposed raising the Office Operations and Administrative sector budget to Rs. 3.727 billion from Rs 3.705 billion. The proposal calls for reducing the Infrastructure Development budget to Rs 11.875 billion from Rs 12.019 billion, Social Development to Rs 5.353 billion from Rs 5.489 billion, and the Good Governance and Inter-related budget to Rs 2.227 billion from Rs 2.963 billion.

Meanwhile, the KMC has managed to spend only 16%, or Rs 4.1 billion, of the total budget allocation of Rs 25.70 million for the current fiscal year. The KMC has achieved 23.58% progress in recurrent expenses spending and 10.92% in capital budget spending.