“Nevertheless, low spending of dedicated budget shows that Covid-19 is more or less under control. But it has not been eliminated yet.”
Even though the government spent a lot of money on purchasing vaccines last fiscal year, it is now receiving the Covid vaccines free of cost under COVAX, a global initiative aimed at equitable access to Covid vaccines. According to the report, the government had spent Rs 22.21bn for the purpose in the last FY 2021/22 against the allocation of Rs 38.96bn. Spending in the fiscal year 2020/21 was Rs 12.56bn while it was Rs 2.6bn in FY 2019/20 when the pandemic began. The country spent a total of Rs 37.38bn for controlling Covid since the beginning. This spending however does not cover spending for social safety and welfare and economic recovery programs. The country spent even more on social safety and welfare and economic recovery to address the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. According to a report published by the Ministry of Finance, the government had spent Rs 72.93bn for health care, social safety, and economic recovery programs by mid-January 2022. Only Rs 30.35bn was spent on health care related to Covid while the rest of the amount was spent on social safety and economic recovery, according to the Program Completion Report of the Covid-19 Active Response and Expenditure Support Program. As a result of the pandemic, the country’s economy suffered a negative growth of over two percent in FY 2020/21. Official statistics show more than 12,000 people have lost their lives in Nepal due to the pandemic.
