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 House of Representatives continued today.

During the second day of discussion on the budget 2019- 20, lawmakers representing the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) and its coalition partner in the central government Samajbadi Party-Nepal said the next year’s budget has created a foundation fore ‘prosperous Nepal, happy Nepali’.

However, lawmakers from the main opposition Nepali Congress and Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal commented that the budget was against federalism and it couldn’t lead to materialising the concept of prosperous 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 will 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 challenged if anyone could criticise this scheme publicly.

Moreover, Samajbadi Party-Nepal lawmaker Bimal Prasad Shreebastav said the budget has satisfied people of the country. He, however, said there were some 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 not take the country on the right track.

“This budget cannot address the people of mountains, hills and the Tarai.

This budget is incomplete and it does not 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 Party-Nepal said last 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’s 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 cannot address the problems of mountains, hills and the Tarai