June 15 : Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada has said that the government is reeling under under the extreme cash crunch due to a heavy drop in the revenue collection during the COVID-19-induced national lockdown.
Responding to queries raised by lawmakers on the Economic Bill for fiscal year 2020-21 which was passed by the House of Representatives yesterday, Khatiwada said,” Low revenue mobilisation is so low in the recent months that it has made state operating simply tough,” adding,” The government requires almost Rs 40 billion a month to manage its mandatory liabilities at But, according to him, the volume of revenue collection per month currently stands at a mere Rs 15 billion.
The salary for government workers, pensions for retired employees, social security allowance for the elderly and disadvantaged groups, and payments to be made for internal and external loans, among others, are mandatory liabilities.
Since the government is being unable to fulfill recurrent expenditure liabilities through revenue collection, it is seeking for leveraging resources of different government funds to continue the state operation.
” We expect to receive Rs 299.50 billion from external debt and Rs 225 billion from domestic borrowing mainly to meet the recurrent expenditure,” he said.
While presenting the budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2020/21, Khatiwada said the government made a downward revision of the target of revenue collection by around 25 percent to Rs 827 billion in the current fiscal.
But the government is apparently under immense strain to even meet this curtailed target after the Supreme Court recently ordered it to give the tax payers at least a month from the date when the lockdown is fully relaxed to clear their dues.
Lamenting that such a verdict could financially emasculate the government to meet its compulsory liabilities, the Finance Ministry on Friday (June 12) registered an application at the top court demanding its nullification.
