Thining provincial purses

Provinces have failed to bolster their development portfolios for lack of internal revenues.

Last week, the Office of the Auditor General released its 60th annual report, which analyses the financial situation of Nepal's federal units, including the provinces. According to the report, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021-22, the total income of the provinces was Rs237 billion, and the expenditure was Rs187 billion (about 89 percent). The average expenditure of the provinces for the past five years was 65 percent. These statistics are enough for those who say the provinces are not spending their fiscal resources. In this piece, I discuss the provinces' fiscal resources (purse), taking the provincial budgets as the basis for the analysis.