Kathmandu (RSS): Finance Minister Dr Yubaraj Khatiwada has said that the new budget was prepared as a departure point for prosperity by fulfilling the basic needs of people.
Responding to the queries of lawmakers raised in the Parliament, Dr Khatiwada defended the budget saying that it was in the line of developing national economy and was socialism oriented for prosperity.
Arguing that the budget has given emphasis on overall development, Finance Minister Khatiwada said that the budget has taken steps to connect the citizens with production adding that the government would take responsibility of social security.
The Finance Minister said, “This is the first budget with grants. This should not be compared with the earlier unitary budget.”
Healso said that the budget should be looked through the framework of federalism since it was confusing while looking only the size of the new fiscal year and added that the budget of all levels would be Rs 1500 billion and the development budget would be of Rs 500 billion.
Claiming that the budget would prepared with the philosophy of honouring the decent works, Dr Khatiwada said the budget was unveiled by being based on internal resources, respecting the employment and labour.
He was of the opinion that the tax rate was increased as the federalism was costlier. “Federalism is costlier. This should be managed and the budget allocation is made accordingly,” he added.
The Finance Minister also claimed that the budget was readied with the spirit of the constitution and hinted at socialism, coordination among public private and cooperative as mentioned by the state’s directive principles in the constitution.
Budget is made by being based on a certain norms and values and budget is not a store house of unlimited resources, it is arithmetic and only the budget without mathematics is bogus.
Claiming his move to make ambitious as the right stance, he said that increasing the size of budget and letting the revenue to go loose and rejecting the international loan is wrong.
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