KATHMANDU, May 20 -- Failure on the part of concerned government agencies to monitor the activities of over 350,000 users' groups has given rise to the misuse of national budget amounting to over billions of rupees each year.

The Office of the Auditor General (OAG) and the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) have started raising serious concerns following the gross misuse of billions of rupees allocated in the name of mushrooming number of users' group to carry out various community projects and other development activities.

These two powerful anti-graft bodies of the government have concluded that over Rs 100 billion is grossly misused and pocketed by local and district level political party leaders and villag...