Govt clears over Rs 17 billion in payments in a single day as fiscal year nears end

KATHMANDU: The government sharply accelerated spending as the current fiscal year enters its final week, disbursing more than Rs 17 billion in a single day amid a rush to settle pending payments before the legal deadline.

According to data from the Financial Comptroller General Office (FCGO), the government made payments totaling Rs 17.09 billion on Wednesday, one of the largest single-day expenditures recorded in recent weeks.

The spike comes as government agencies race to clear outstanding bills before the close of the fiscal year. Under existing financial regulations, government offices must issue payment cheques by Thursday, prompting a surge in payment processing across ministries and public agencies.

The year-end rush has also put significant pressure on the government’s financial management systems. Officials said the SuTRA (Subnational Treasury Regulatory Application) system, which is used by local governments across the country to process financial transactions, has experienced widespread technical disruptions due to the heavy volume of transactions.

Such bottlenecks are common during the final days of the fiscal year when federal, provincial and local government agencies attempt to utilize their remaining budgets before spending authority expires.

With Wednesday’s payments, the government’s total expenditure for the current fiscal year reached Rs 1.532 trillion, up from Rs 1.515 trillion recorded a day earlier.

Despite the surge in overall spending, capital expenditure—widely regarded as a key indicator of development spending—continues to lag far behind the annual target.

As of Wednesday, the government had spent only Rs 163.17 billion under the capital budget, equivalent to 40 percent of the annual allocation.

The government had earmarked Rs 407 billion for capital expenditure in the current fiscal year, but weak project implementation and delayed procurement have once again prevented development spending from gathering pace until the final weeks of the year.

Nepal has a total implementation budget of Rs 1.964 trillion for the current fiscal year.

Revenue mobilization has also remained below expectations. FCGO data show that by Wednesday, the government had collected Rs 1.156 trillion in revenue, representing only 78.15 percent of the annual target.

The government had set a revenue collection target of Rs 1.480 trillion for the fiscal year, leaving a shortfall of more than Rs 324 billion with only a few days remaining before the fiscal year ends.

Economists have long criticized Nepal’s recurring pattern of heavy year-end spending, arguing that the concentration of expenditures in the final weeks undermines budget efficiency, weakens project oversight and often compromises the quality of public infrastructure and service delivery.

The latest figures suggest that while government spending has accelerated significantly in the closing days of the fiscal year, both capital expenditure and revenue collection remain well below their respective annual targets, highlighting persistent challenges in budget execution and fiscal management.