KATHMANDU, MAY 19

Lawmakers of the House of Representatives urged the government to prepare new fiscal budget in a way that could make the country's economy self-reliant. Lawmakers warned that if enough safeguards were not put in place, the country might face an economic crisis similar to the one Sri Lanka was facing.

Taking part in the budgetary principles and priorities debate in the Lower House today, CPN-Maoist Centre lawmaker Giriraj Mani Pokharel said youngsters were going abroad in droves to work as the country had failed to offer adequate job opportunities.

He said the government should provide the right to vote to all Nepalis who were working in foreign countries.

The government should also try to use the skills Nepali migrant workers learnt in labour destinations, he added. He said the government needed to learn from Cuba for bringing revolutionary changes in agriculture sector, the backbone of the economy.

CPN-UML lawmaker Ghanashyam Khatiwada said the government had failed to provide seeds, fertilisers, and agriculture loan to farmers.

He said the budgetary principles and priorities had failed to incorporate river diversion programmes that were urgently needed to irrigate arable land. He said they had also failed to mention anything about completing national pride projects and contribution of cooperatives to the national economy.

CPN-MC lawmaker Kamala Roka said the tendency to allocate more budget to areasthat benefit the privileged should be discouraged and farmers should be provided with pension.

UML lawmaker Navaraj Silwal said vital economic indicators were bad and Nepal faced the risk of going the Sri Lanka way as far as national economy was concerned.

Nepali Congress lawmaker Sanjay Gautam said corruption should be eliminated to rectify problems facing the national economy.

NC's Rajan KC said the government should not provide social security allowance to those who were not below the poverty line.

Minister of Finance Janardan Sharma responded to National Assembly lawmakers' remarks on budgetary principles and priorities saying that poverty could be eradicated if parties forged national consensus on ways to do so. He said the country's economy was in a bad shape mainly due to the COVID pandemic, natural disasters, and the Russia-Ukraine war.

He said inflation had increased as prices of petroleum products had gone up.

Sharma, however, said that the projection that the economy would grow at 5.84 per cent had given the country some optimism. The minister admitted that despite the government's efforts to keep inflation below 6.5 per cent, it has reached 6.28 per cent mainly due to ever increasing prices of petroleum products.

Sharma said although foreign currency reserves were enough to meet import costs for slightly more than six months, there had been some improvement in recent days in foreign currency reserves.

The Upper House today ended discussion on budgetary principles and priorities.

The Lower House, however, will continue debating them tomorrow as well.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 20, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.