Kathmandu, May 16 -- The Ministry of Health and Population has demanded Rs 54 billion-Rs 400 million more than the current budget allocated to the Health Ministry-for the upcoming fiscal year. However, the Ministry of Finance says the ceiling for the ministry's budget is Rs 34.4 billion.

Officials at the Health Ministry said that insufficient budget in the next fiscal year would mean they will not be able to invest in the programmes launched to achieve Sustainable Development Goal targets.

The government had committed to Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), a collection of 17 goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015.

"Due to lack of sufficient budget this fiscal year, we could not run important health programmes, such a...