According to the budget endorsed by the parliament, the biggest chunk of Rs 78.81 billion was allotted for appropriation heads. The allocations need parliamentary approval to come into execution. [break]
As per a special arrangement made in the Article 96 (A) of the Interim Constitution, the parliament passed a bill proposed by present caretaker government seeking authority to spend one-third of the actual expenditure of the current fiscal year for expenditure heads falling under the appropriate items category.
Of the allocations under the appropriation heads, Ministry of Education has absorbed the largest chunk of Rs 15.2 billion, followed by Ministry of Local Development and Ministry of Physical Planning and Works that received Rs 10.21 billion and Rs 8.94 billion respectively.
The special budget has also allocated Rs 6.47 billion for Ministry of Home Affairs and Rs 5.85 billion for Ministry of Defense.
Similarly, the finance minister has also earmarked Rs 31.40 billion under expenditure headings for chargeable items -- expenditure allocations that do not need parliamentary approval. Of the amount, repayment of principal and interests of domestic as well as foreign loans alone has absorbed almost Rs 30.55 billion.
The budget has also earmarked Rs 4.48 million for the president and Rs 3.6 million for the vice president.
Budget for expenditure heads like repayment of domestic as well as foreign loans and interest, expenses for the president, parliament and the judiciary are earmarked under the chargeable items in the budget and such expenditures are not discussed at the parliament.
As per the Interim Constitution, the government has not announced any new tax polices as a caretaker government can´t bring changes to the present tax structure or introduce new tax rates.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Pandey has stressed the need to bring a full-fledged budget as soon as possible to minimize possible impacts on ongoing development efforts.
Regarding the challenges that the economy is facing, Finance Minister Pandey said that bloating consumptive consumer behavior has been a major problem and underlined the need to bring polices to curb import of some commodities to control ballooning trade deficit.
Addressing a press conference after the endorsement of the special budget, Pandey said the government should refocus its investment strategies in agriculture sector to reduce existing trade imbalance, which has resulted in an alarming deficit in the balance of payment.
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