By Our Reporter
The second budget of the two-thirds majority communist government is designed to placate the dissatisfied NCP leaders who were demanding funds under Constituency Development Programme and to adhere to party’s election manifesto, particularly increasing cash-based social security allowances.
However, the main opposition party, the Nepali Congress, criticised the budget terming it as distributive budget. Nepali Congress and the people in general have been unhappy with the allocation of Rs. 60 million to each lawmakers elected directly by the people under the Constituency Development Fund, which they can spend in their electoral constituency. But the private sector has surprisingly hailed the budget.
The FNCCI, the umbrella organisation of the business community issued a statement on Tuesday praising the budget for the pro-industries programmes/
Finance Minister Dr. Yuba Raj Khatiwada last Wednesday unveiled a budget of Rs. 1.532 trillion for the coming Fiscal Year 2019/20 with priority to poverty alleviation, infrastructure development and good governance.
The budget is bigger by 14.3 per cent – Rs. Rs. 217 billion – than the current fiscal,
Dr. Khatiwada said he had given importance to creating welfare state mechanism, increasing national productivity, quality education, health and water supply, accountability and cooperation among the subnational units and private sector.
The Finance Minister has allocated Rs. 957.10 billion, for recurrent expenditure, Rs. 408.05 billion for development expenditure and Rs. 167.86 billion for financial management.
The share of recurrent and capital expenditure and financial management is 62.4 per cent, 26.6 per cent and 11 per cent respectively. The low allocation to capital expenditure has drawn criticism.
The budget aims to mobilise Rs. 981.13 billion revenue and Rs. 58 billion foreign grant to manage source for the expenditure. Remaining about Rs. 494 billion would be managed from foreign loan of Rs. 298.83 billion and domestic loan Rs. 195 billion. The big share of revenue means the people will be paying more tax as industries cannot meet the revenue. Similarly, size of budget deficit is bigger than the size of the capital budget.
Finance Minister Dr. Khatiwada has allocated Rs. 55.30 billion to the states and Rs. 89.95 billion to the local bodies as equalisation grant on the basis of the formula recommended by the National Natural Resource and Fiscal Commission.
Similarly, Rs. 44.55 billion to the provinces and Rs. 123.87 billion to local bodies is allocated as the conditional grant.
Dr. Khatiwada has plans to revive sick public enterprises and establish more industries in collaboration with the private sector in his annual budget.
The government has allocated Rs. 64.50 billion for social security programmes. Senior Citizen Allowance is increased by Rs. 1,000 which reached Rs. 3,000.
Likewise, allowance for the disabled, single women, endangered ethnicities is also increased by Rs. 1,000. The civil servants pay was hiked by 20 per cent.
However, there are no new programmes as such but existing ones are too scattered too.
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