Budget to come to implementation from the first day of the fiscal year: Finance Ministeru

Finance Minister Shankar Prasad Koirala today claimed that the budget will come into an implementation from tomorrow, the first day of the new fiscal year.

The budget for the current fiscal year 2013-14 brought yesterday will also be acceptable to the elected government as it has been prepared on the basis of approach paper for the third Three-Year Interim Plan (TYIP), he said, adding that the government has also held series of discussions with the stakeholders and political parties before bringing the budget.

The government has recently approved the third Three Year Interim Plan (2013-16) that has envisioned a next three years’ development plans. “The budget has been based on the third Three-Year Interim Plan with focus on key sectors and necessary resources,” he explained. “The fiscal policy has no new programmes, which could be not acceptable for the new government that will be formed after the second Constituent Assembly (CA) election scheduled for November 4," Koirala added.

However, the government reviewed some tax rates after two years of gap to arrange for more resources and also to abide by commitments made to global trade regime, he clarified, adding that the timely budget will, but help get satisfactory results in development projects. “The government is also planning to take some measures to manage budget accountability and ensure implementation to boost economic growth," the finance minister added.

The concentrated approach of the government has cut down the number of projects to 452 in the fiscal year 2013-14 from last fiscal year 459 a fiscal year ago. “The drop in the number of projects is also due to more concentrated approach to implementation of the budget,” he said adding that budget has also mandated not to make any amendment in programmes after the third trimester of the fiscal year.

The Rs 517.82 billion budget has however, is going to fuel inflation in the market. But Koirala assured that the government will take all necessary measures, including improved supplies channels, effective market monitoring and increase in domestic production to contain price hike at eight per cent as envisioned by the budget.