“If a political consensus on launching full-fledged budget were forged, the fiscal policy would have included special programs based on ethnicity, gender and region to deliver social justice to all,” he said. [break]
“Such programs would have included provisions like free higher education coupled with allowance for students of Dalit background, establishment of multi-cultural academy to promote culture and lingua franca of indigenous nationalities and Madhesi groups, legal changes that would have allowed females to inherit family property, allowance to promote female education, pension programs for citizens, universal healthcare and special packages for underprivileged people of Karnali and people affected by the decade-long insurgency.”
Finance Minister Pun unveiling budget. (Photo: Dipesh Shrestha)
The finance minister then briefly discussed the condition of macroeconomic indicators and achievements made by his ministry, prior to discussing the content of the full-fledged budget, which, unfortunately never saw the light of the day.
These included plans to attain double digit economic growth based on social justice, aid industrialization based on use of domestic resources, expand road networks, come up with detailed designs of potential hydropower projects, reduce trade deficit by encouraging production of agro products, ensure employment of at least 100 days to unemployed people, extend basic health services free of cost and launch drinking water projects in drought affected areas such as Ramechhap, Panchthar and Kavrepalanchowk, among others.
The content was so long, it consumed half of the space of 22-page booklet on special budget speech.
As people present in the hall started wondering why the finance minister was spending time explaining plans that would never be implemented, murmurs became audible in the room, which had maintained pin-drop silence when Pun had taken the podium.
Soon jokes like the finance minister had launched full-fledged budget sans funds started swirling in the hall. Others said the minister, who had prepared the text for full budget, read the entire content by excluding monetary allocation for different projects.
The most convincing comment, however, was that the finance minister had deliberately included the content of his dumped fiscal policy in his speech to create an archive so that if future governments include his plans in their annual budget he could point finger at them and accuse them of poaching his plans.
Jokes apart, Bishwambar Pyakurel, a renowned economist, said: “The minister´s intention was probably to show his generosity, which actually would have induced inflationary risks on the economy.”
Criticizing the government´s distributive and populist policies, and plans of extending cash incentives in different sectors, he said, no country in the world has been able to sustain economic growth by distributing cash.
"This only raises consumer prices," he said, informing, “The finance minister would have done better if he had presented a diagnostic report on problems faced by different sectors of the economy and policies that could help overcome hurdles.”
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