PM’s Austerity Practice- reduces expense by 28%

Kathmandu, March 27. In line with the austerity measure adopted by the government, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has reduced the expenses at his office by 28 per cent in a year, which amounts Rs 16.09 million.

An Austerity Work Procedure-2075 was adopted by this government since the beginning of its formation. In this bid, the PM reduced the employees at his office from 76 to 52. As per the record maintained at the PM’s Office, the previous year-before this government, the annual expense of the PM’s Office was Rs 35.2 million, which was reduced to Rs 25.3 million as the annual expense of the present government.

Spokesperson at the PM Office, Binod Kumar Kunwar, informed that the expense was curtailed in line with PM’s commitment to austerity. For this, foreign visit allowance and daily allowance were slashed by the PM.

Although expense on various other headings has been heavily curtailed, the expense on heading of Office of the Council of Ministers was slightly upped- by Rs 100 thousand. In the previous year- before this government, the office operation cost was Rs 3.4 million while it rose to 3.5 million in this government.

Those working at morning and evening shifts which were provided allowance in the past are not allowed it now. The daily allowance is declined from Rs 2.5 million to Rs 163,000, according to Kunwar. Even the expense on monitoring has declined sharply.

Although there is a provision that PM Oli can appoint 52 persons at his personal secretariat, there are only 26. Among them six are advisors, three experts, two honorary advisors and 15 employees.