Government asks Ministries, other govt agencies to reduce unnecessary expenses

KATHMANDU: Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has instructed government employees to reduce unnecessary expenses citing increase in fuel prices affecting the country’s foreign exchange reserves.

During a meeting at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers in Singh Durbar on Tuesday, he urged the ministers and secretaries not provide vehicle facilities and fuel to employees or other officials except those who are entitled to receive such facilities.
Prime Minister Deuba also instructed the ministers and secretaries to work towards making the country become self-sufficient in vegetables and fruits within six months and self-reliant in food within one year. He directed all the ministries to make plans and work towards increasing electricity consumption and promoting exports.

Similarly, PM Deuba said that consumption of the petroleum products should be gradually reduced while increasing consumption of hydroelectricity and directed the line agencies to introduce concrete plan of action for increasing consumption of hydroelectricity.

Stating that the entire strength and vigour should be devoted for economic progress, social transformation and good-governance, the PM said the bottlenecks of development should be resolved through policy and institutional reforms by identifying those issues on time.

On the occasion, PM Deuba directed the ministers and secretaries to bring about positive changes in the service delivery to achieve good results through enhancement of the implementation capacity.

During the meeting, PM Deuba said COVID-19 has had serious impact on our economic and social activities and our economy has witnessed external sector’s pressure leading to challenges in all sectors of the economy.

“But, the situation is not so worrisome. Growth in the recurrent expenditure should be controlled by strengthening policy implementation and regulation side. We should work to control inflation and ensure investment in the productive sector,” the PM said.
The major challenge of the time is to maintain economic stability and gradually bring reforms in the key indicators of economy, PM Deuba said.
Likewise, PM Deuba urged all to speed up implementation of the development projects to contribute to SDGs target, and Nepal’s graduation from the least developed country (LDC) by 2026.