Nepal, April 29 -- If the past is any guide, in the matter of some weeks, one of the most hard-up nations in the world, i.e., our very own, will be using money from our strained national treasury to literally flush it down the drain. That will happen with what has been termed asare bikas or 'development done in the month of Asar', the last one in our fiscal year, when there is a mad scramble to spend earmarked funds.

Although it has been happening every year, the situation last time around was distressing. The government spent a massive Rs233 billion in Asar, 2082 Bikram Sambat. That is a gargantuan figure indeed and represented 15.4 percent of the entire government expenditure for the whole of that fiscal year. The money was used up in ...