Kathmandu, Feb. 7 -- The government has reduced the annual budget by 9 percent, acknowledging its inability to fully use the allocated funds. It did so through a mid-term budget review presented on Thursday.

Initially, the budget for the current fiscal year, ending mid-July 2025, was set at Rs1.86 trillion.

Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel announced a mid-term review in Parliament on Thursday, saying that the revised estimate is now Rs1.69 trillion, or 90.99 percent of the original allocation.

In the first six months of the fiscal year, 35.89 percent (Rs667.6 billion) of the budget has been spent, though it represents a 17.66 percent increase from the same period last year.

The revised expenditure estimates include Rs1.02 trillio...