KATHMANDU, MAY 17

The government is set to present the upcoming fiscal year's budget with a vision to build an independent economy with focus on social justice and rural development.

Laying emphasis on developing socialism-oriented economy, the government has set its policy objective to generate employment opportunities for immigrant youths within the country and increase agriculture yields.

Minister of Finance Janardan Sharma shared this while presenting the principles and priorities of budget and programme to be included in upcoming fiscal year's Appropriation Bill at today's House of Representatives meeting.

On the occasion, Minister Sharma further noted that the constitutional ideals, parameters and directives including democratic republic, federal governance system, inclusion, socialism-oriented economy had been taken into consideration while formulating the budget proposal. He clarified that the government would focus on allocating adequate resources in prioritised sectors, enhancing allocation efficiency for ensuring result-oriented execution of appropriated budget, boosting institutional capacity and maintaining financial discipline.

As per the principles and priorities, the government is to focus onproposing budget only for financially and technically feasible projects and cutting public spending on unproductive sectors, the minister added.

'Budget will be centralised for ensuring smooth public service, pro-people and service-seeker-friendly, increasing information technology use in service delivery and promoting good governance by checking corruption and irregularities.

The priorities are ultimately meant for enhancing public trust towards the government,' the minister explained.

He further said the new budget would have measures for productive economy by improving existing tax system. Focus would be laid on increasing the share of Inland Revenue to the national revenue portfolio, Minister Sharma said, adding the budget had set a longterm goal of making tax system sustainable by expanding the scope of tax, checking revenue leakage and ensuring further reforms in tax system.

Likewise, policies are to be put in place for utilising public debt in national priority areas, productive sectors and capital formation; avoiding negative impacts on the use of fiscal instruments by private sector while mobilising domestic debt and channelising foreign aid only on national priorities and capital formation, the document states.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 18, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.