Deliberations on the budget for FY 2022/23 continue in HoR

Kathmandu : The House of Representatives (HoR), the lower house of the Federal Parliament, continued deliberations on the annual estimate of income and expenditure (budget) for the fiscal year 2022/23 for the third day today.

Speaker Agni Prasad Sapkota informed the session of the lower house that general discussions would be held on the principles of the budget which will be followed by detailed discussions on the ministry-wise headings of the budget later on.

Taking part in the deliberations, CPN (UML)’s Pradip Kumar Gyawali alleged that the present government has invited both political and economic instability and thereby brought a further crisis to the nation. He wished that may this not be true. He said that the Finance Minister should have brought the budget considering the adverse situation created by the present economic crisis in the world, but has not done so.

Gyawali also charged that the budget was a hindrance to development and insensitive in several instances. Stating that the budget was not practicable, he said, “The budget is bloated. This is the election year. You have mentioned during discussions that you are going to decrease the imports and increase the revenue. But a large proportion of our revenue comes from imports.” Programmes mentioned in the budget should be implemented: Gagan Thapa Nepali Congress lawmaker Gagan Kumar Thapa said that programmes related to decreasing the trade deficit and increasing the production are excellent ones in the budget. “The budget should be rigorously implemented as the programmes are sound.

However, the Finance Ministry should call the ministries concerned and discuss the implementation modalities. The budget has brought the right policy on decreasing the trade deficit,” he said, adding that the provisions on social security as provisioned in the budget are worth welcoming. There should transparency in the sources of the budget, he stressed. ‘Teachers should be qualified for providing quality education’ Giriraj Mani Pokharel of the CPN (Maoist Center) has suggested enhancing the skills and capacity of the teachers for imparting quality education.

The former Education Minister stressed the need of paying more attention to accessible and quality education. “There is a provision of giving the responsibility of school education to the local government.

However, this has not helped improve the quality of education as expected. The teachers should be made more capable while the schools technology-friendly,” he noted. Pokharel said that technical education should be provided in keeping with the concept of the constitution and that the Ministry of Education should be seen as the human resource ministry in terms of curriculum.

He said that the budget which has addressed many issues related to education and health is a good one. Jiban Ram Shrestha and Surya Narayan Yadav remarked that the budget has incorporated all sectors and hence it should be put into implementation in an effective way. —