The Sudurpaschim provincial government has tabled a budget of NPR 34.8 billion for the coming fiscal year. Presented by the minister for economic affairs, it allocates 41 percent of the total to physical infrastructure.
The health sector's share falls from 11 percent last year to 9 percent, and education drops by a percentage point. Opposition members have criticised both.
“Medicine does not reach the health posts in the hill districts, and we are building roads,” one opposition member told the assembly. “Roads are needed. But should we build a road to carry the patient, or treat the patient?”
The government side argued that infrastructure investment benefits every sector in the long run, and said the Karnali corridor and roads connecting the hill districts were the priorities.
The Auditor General's report notes that the province spent only 63 percent of its allocated capital budget last year. Economists point out that increasing the size of a budget without increasing the capacity to spend it achieves little.
