Janardan Sharma defends budget, says, not populist and distributive

Finance Minister Janardan Sharma has defended the budget he tabled in the House. He denied the allegations that the budget was ambitious, populist and distributive.

In a press meet a day after the budget speech and in the meeting of the House of Representatives, he tried his best to justify that the budget was practical.

Responding to the queries of the lawmakers in the Lower House, Minister Sharma said that the budget for FY 2022/23 was not an ambitious as it was bigger by only 9.86 per cent than the budget of the current fiscal year.

“Allocating 10 per cent greater budget than the current fiscal year is a normal trend, so it is not an ambitious budget,” he said.

The Finance Minister said that the budget presented for the coming fiscal year had been allocated with utmost restraints and proper allocation of resources were made.

“The budget is balanced and realistic and not ambitious. We have tried our best to draft the best budget for the year,” he told the House. FM Sharma further said that the budget consists of programmes to promote the the agricultural sector, make good use of barren land and attract the youth in agriculture in a bid to create a selfreliant economy.

“The contributionbased farmers' welfare fund proves that the budget emphasizes domestic production,” Sharma said, adding that the budget had been formulated according to the need to take the country towards rapid production by combining the available resources, means, capital and technology.

Sharma said that the post-election government would continue the budget as the budget was brought by fulfilling the obligation as the government has to submit the annual budget on May 29 every year even though it is the year of election.

UML lawmakers had criticized the Finance Minister for unveiling programmes for the whole year whereas only five months are left for the government to remain in office. “Every government has a constitutional requirement to present an annual budget, not of only five months,” he said. He said that the election will be held in its own process and the next government will implement the same budget.

Minister Sharma said that the overall economic growth will be eight per cent in the next fiscal year. He hoped that the economy would progress as the flow of foreign aid was encouraging. Through the budget, the government has set clear targets to pull out 800,000 people from absolute poverty, decrease imports of rice, maize, wheat, vegetables and fruits by 30 per cent, and imports of other goods by 20 per cent over a year's period. It also aims at doubling the exports and creating trade balance in the next five years, increasing decent jobs by 30 per cent in a year, and provide housing to landless Dalits, among others.

“Achieving these targets is the challenge for the government. But we have the confidence to implement the programmes announced in the budget and meet these targets by the end of the next fiscal,” Sharma had said at the post-budget press meet organised at the Ministry of Finance last week. FM Sharma said that the projects like international airport in Nijgadh and KarnaliChisapani Multipurpose Project are the dream projects and the country must aspire for the implementation of such projects.

He said that the fast-track roads with tunnels to Chitwan and Pokhara are included in the budget on the basis of pre-feasibility study. However, he maintained that there is a need to make the line ministries able to spend capital allocation.

Sharma had unveiled a budget of Rs. 1793.83 billion for the upcoming Fiscal Year 2022/23 on Sunday, with priority to agriculture, poverty alleviation and employment generation.