Previously, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MoHA) had demanded over Rs 8 billion from the Ministry of Finance (MoF) for security purposes but the amount required may now exceed Rs 14 billion in view of the additional demands. [break]
According to a joint-secretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs, the budgetary demand has increased despite a reduction in the previous estimate of the numbers of Nepal Police, Armed Police Force (APF), temporary police personnel that would be required.
The government´s budget for the current fiscal year had allocated a total of Rs 16 billion for election security and the Election Commission. Of the total budget allocated for election security, the Nepal Army has demanded over Rs 3.5 billion, the Nepal Police, including temporary police, Rs 6 billion, the AFP Rs 4 billion and the National Intelligence Department the remaining amount.
The government has already released over Rs 1 billion for the purchase of goods that take a long time to procure, said Baikuntha Aryal, joint-secretary and chief of Budget Division at MoF. Most of the time, preliminary estimates of budget expenses do not match the actual demand, so there might be fluctuations in the estimation, he added.
But MoF has not released any additional amount as per the new demands by MoHA as the poll security plan might change, according to the MoHA joint-secretary. He said, “The estimated amount increased astonishingly as the Nepal Police and Armed Police Force demanded extra salaries and allowances for the entire security force.” But it was not possible to provide extra allowances for those deployed on regular duty, he added.
Earlier, MoHA had indicated a recruitment of 70,000 temporary police personnel for election duty in addition to the existing security personnel, but the number was lowered to 45,000 as the plan was to conduct the election on a single day. So MoHA on Thursday wrote back to Nepal Police to rethink their proposal and make it accord with the ground reality, the requirement and the government´s budget estimate.
Nepal Police had submitted an additional budget proposal to provide for uniforms and training for temporary police, transportation, medicine, arms and communications equipments and logistics related to room and board, added a source at MoHA.
Joint-secretary Aryal said MoF is mulling to arrange around Rs 3 billion from the Peace Fund and other sources. The Nepal Army has also proposed to the government to increase the budget, saying that extra funding was needed to make aviation and transport facilities more operational and effective. According to NA sources, the extra budget was required for the maintenance of grounded helicopters and the purchase of arms and communications equipment.
Chief of Army Staff (CoAS) Gaurav Shumsher Rana, who is scheduled to visit India at the end of September, plans to seek some support from the Indian government.
According to NA sources, CoAS Rana will continue talks on election security support from the Indian Army as per earlier agreements between the two sides. The source also stressed that the support, including transportation and arms, will reach here before the election.
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