KATHMANDU, May 18: The government is set to present the upcoming fiscal year's budget with a vision for building a self-reliant economy and focus on social justice and rural development.
Putting emphasis on developing a socialism-oriented economy, the government has set its policy objective to generate employment opportunities for migrant youths within the country and increase agricultural yields.
Minister for Finance, Janardan Sharma shared this while presenting the principles and priorities of budget and program to be included in upcoming fiscal year's Appropriation Bill in Tuesday's House of Representatives (HoR) meeting.
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On the occasion, Minister Sharma 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 on allocating adequate resources for the prioritized sectors, enhancing allocation efficiency for ensuring result-oriented execution of appropriated budgets, 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.
"The budget will be centered on ensuring smooth, pro-people and service-seeker friendly public service, 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 in the government," the minister explained.
He further said the new budget would put measures for a productive economy by improving the existing tax system. Increasing the share of inland revenue to the national revenue portfolio will be focused, Minister Sharma said, adding that the budget will set a long-term goal of making the tax system sustainable by expanding the scope of tax, checking revenue leakage and ensuring further reforms in the tax system.
Likewise, policies are to be put in place for utilizing public debt in national priority areas, productive sectors and capital formation; avoiding negative impacts on the use of fiscal instruments by the private sector while mobilizing domestic debt and channelizing foreign aid only on national priorities and capital formation, the document states.
