Upcoming budget: key priority on social justice and developing an independent economy

The government is set to present the upcoming fiscal year's budget with a vision toward building an independent economy with a focus on social justice and rural development.

Emphasizing on developing a social-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 programs to be included in the upcoming fiscal year's Appropriation Bill in yesterday's House of Representatives.

On the occasion, Minister Sharma further noted that the constitutional ideals, parameters, and directives including the democratic republic, federal governance system, inclusion, and 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 prioritized sectors, enhancing allocation efficiency for ensuring result-oriented execution of the appropriated budget, boosting institutional capacity, and maintaining financial discipline.

As per the principles and priorities, the government is to focus on proposing a budget only the financially and technically feasible projects and cutting off public spending on unproductive sectors, the minister added.

"Budget will be centralized 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", the minister explained.

He further said the new budget would put measures for a productive economy by improving the existing tax system. The focus would 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 the tax system sustainable by expanding the scope of tax, checking revenue leakage, and ensuring further reforms in the tax system.

Likewise, the 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.