Budget for next fiscal year to be unveiled today

Kathmandu. Finance Minister Dr. Swarnim Wagle is presenting the budget for the fiscal year 2083÷84 in the joint session of the Federal Parliament at 4:00 pm today. This is the first budget that the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP)-led government is going to bring.

The Finance Minister is preparing to bring a huge budget of about Rs 21-22 trillion, exceeding the initial ceiling of Rs 18.90 trillion set by the National Resource Estimates Committee. The government has set ambitious targets to address the people’s aspirations despite a loss of around Rs one billion in the current fiscal year and low revenue collection.

The budget has set a long-term goal of making Nepal a ¥100 billion economy within seven years and a middle-income country within 10 years. The budget has given special priority to good governance, digital Nepal, information technology and connectivity. The government is preparing to declare information technology as a ‘national strategic industry’ and bring seed capital for startups and a ‘remote work’ program for the youth. Similarly, the budget will also include the commitment to reopen closed industries and to provide government services online, not line.

The government is likely to introduce tough policies such as increasing the salaries of civil servants from 27 to 56 percent and dissolving trade unions to end the partisanship of the bureaucracy. The private sector will be called upon to invest in big projects including tunnel ways to overcome the constraints of government budget in infrastructure development. Although the government has to depend on internal and external loans and grants to bridge the resource gap, the budget is expected to lay emphasis on economic restructuring.