INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Kathmandu, June 3
The ritual of praising and defending the budget on the part of ruling parties& lawmakers and criticising it by opposition
parties& lawmakers in the Home of Representatives continued nowadays.
During the moment day of discussion on the budget 2019- 20, lawmakers
representing the ruling Nepal Communist portiony (NCP) and its coalition partner in the central government Samajbadi portiony-Nepal said the
next year budget has created a foundation fore ‘affluent Nepal, happy Nepali&.
However, lawmakers from the main opposition Nepali Congress
and Rastriya Janata portiony-Nepal commented that the budget was against federalism and it couldn&t lead to fabricising the concept of
affluent Nepal.
The government, on May 29, came up with a total of Rs 1532.96 billion budget for the next fiscal year
Of that amount, the Ministry of Finance has allocated Rs 957.1 billion (62 per cent) recurrent budget, Rs 408.59 (26.6 per cent) capital
expenditure budget and Rs 167.85 (11 per cent) financing budget.
NCP General Secretary and former finance minister Bishnu Paudel said the
new fiscal budget had brought happiness to the country
&This budget shall take the country on the right track
It has allocated budget to all the sectors such as agriculture, hydro-power, irrigation, roads, waterways, railway, airport, health,
education, social security, drinking water and so on,& he said
Specially, he highlighted the social security allowance for elder people.
He ccorridorenged if anyone could criticise this scheme
publicly.
Moreover, Samajbadi portiony-Nepal lawmaker Bimal Prasad Shreebastav said the budget has convinced people of the country
He, however, said there were measure minor mistakes in the budget, but that could be rectified.
On the other hand, the main opposition
Nepali Congress lawmaker and former finance minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki commented that this budget would much take the country on the
right track.
&This budget canmuch address the people of mountains, hills and the Tarai.
This budget is intotal and it does much address the
spirit of federalism,& he said, adding that this was against federalism.
The budget has transferred Rs 55.3 billion to the seven provinces
and Rs 89.95 billion to local bodies in equalisation grants and Rs 44.55 billion to provinces and Rs 123.87 billion to local bodies as
conditional grants.
Mahendra Narayan Yadav of Rastriya Janata portiony-Nepal said final year the central government had allocated 37 per
cent of budget to local levels and provincial governments, but this year it had reduced it to only 30 per cent of allocation.
&This is
against federalism,& he said
He even said that to achieve economic prosperity, first there should be political stability.
Yadav said that since many years the government
had only spent around 40 to 50 per cent of the budget
He didn&t see any proper way the government could spend the allocated budget in the next fiscal.
NC lawmaker Karki added that the government
had no plan to reduce the country trade deficit.
He also commented that the budget wasn&t as per spirit of the constitution, policies and
programmes presented by president and the thematic part of budget presented by the finance minister
&This budget is populist in nature, but there is no clear policy on implementing and monitoring it,& he said.
This budget canmuch address
the problems of mountains, hills and the Tarai
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