Upcoming budget: Priority on social justice, development of independent economy

KATHMANDU: The government is set to present budget for the fiscal year 2022/23 with a vision of building an independent economy with a 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 for Finance Janardan Sharma shared this while presenting the principles and priorities of budget and programme to be included in the upcoming fiscal year's Appropriation Bill at Tuesday’s House of Representatives (HoR) meeting. On the occasion, the finance minister noted that the constitutional ideals, parameters and directives including democratic republic, federal governance system, inclusion, socialism-oriented economy have been taken into consideration while formulating the budget proposal. He clarified that the government would focus measures 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 on proposing budget only in the financially and technically feasible projects and cutting off public spending on unproductive sectors, the minister added. "Budget will be centralised in ensuring public service smooth, 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 government," Minister Sharma explained. He said the new budget would put measures for productive economy by improving existing tax system. The focus will be laid on increasing the share of Inland Revenue to the national revenue portfolio, Minister Sharma said, adding the budget has set a long-term goal of making tax system sustainable by expanding scope of tax, checking revenue leakage and ensuring further reforms in tax system. Likewise, the policies will 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. (With inputs from RSS) READ ALSO:

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