Congress Spokesperson Criticizes New Budget as Financially Burdensome and Distribution-Oriented

Kathmandu. Nepali Congress spokesperson Devraj Chalise has strongly criticized the new budget presented by the government, terming it financially burdensome and distribution-oriented. Posting on social media Facebook, he accused the government of being completely unsuccessful in controlling recurrent expenditure, citing high recurrent spending and low capital spending in the budget. 

He stated that this budget, brought by the National Independent Party (RSP) government, uses mild language to deceive the public and tries to hide its weaknesses. According to spokesperson Chalise, 59.8 percent of the total budget, amounting to 12 kharba 70 arab 58 crore rupees, has been allocated for recurrent expenditure, while only 20.3 percent, or 4 kharba 31 arab 10 crore rupees, has been set aside for capital expenditure. 

He pointed out that the budget lacks any credible plan to reduce recurrent expenditure and increase capital expenditure. Mentioning a large imbalance between loans and capital expenditure in the budget, he said, 'The total loan target in the budget is set at 657.28 arab rupees, which is 226.18 arab rupees more than the capital expenditure.' 

He claimed that this creates a frightening situation where loans have to be taken to repay loans or to meet ordinary expenses, and now each Nepali will have a debt of approximately 1 lakh 20 thousand rupees. He stated that a large portion of the loan is likely to be spent on non-productive sectors such as salaries, allowances, vehicles, foreign travel, monitoring, and consultancy for ministers, members of parliament, and employees. 

Chalise termed the revenue collection target of 14 kharba 5 arab 31 crore rupees set by the budget as ambitious but baseless. He concluded that this target has been set without any concrete basis for growth in production, industry, exports, and employment, and that this budget is merely a consumption-based revenue-targeted budget. 

Similarly, he criticized the tax policy for having extreme contradictions, stating that on one hand, the maximum rate of income tax has been reduced from 39 percent to 29 percent and the tax exemption limit has been increased by 3 lakh to 10 lakh, while on the other hand, new fees and tax scopes have been expanded in areas directly related to people's lives such as electricity, education, and health, which he objected to. 

The Congress spokesperson accused the government of completely neglecting the country's farmers, the poor, and the production sector. He mentioned that although 20 percent of the population is below the poverty line, adequate relief has not been provided for them, there is no incentive for farmers, and the shortage of chemical fertilizers will continue in the coming days. He claimed that the country's trade deficit will increase instead of decreasing due to the lack of any significant plan to promote exportable goods like tea and cardamom and the failure to address the practical problem of 100 rupees at the border. 

Overall, Chalise accused this budget of being in line with the policy of 'wherever there is a vote, there is a budget'. He sarcastically congratulated the RSP for the 'distribution-oriented budget', stating that the current government, which emerged from a digital platform, has brought a budget only to please the digital platform and its supporters. 

He clarified that the government's previous manifestos, 100-point or 19-point agreements have proven to be mere propaganda narratives, and while the digital world that propagates them is happy with this budget, the budget is a failure in the real ground.