The government has arranged that new contracts can be made after the announcement of the budget from this year. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Bishnu Paudel has said that arrangements have been made so that there is no need to wait for the new financial year. He said that there is no need to wait for the new financial year to award a new contract for the project that has been completed.
"The budget will come on May 15, and we have made arrangements to start a new procurement process from the 16th the next day," Finance Minister Paudel said. He said that the concerned ministry should fill the posts of employees for the implementation of the budget by the middle of July.
The issue of increasing the capacity of project management, taking priority of the relevant ministries in policy reform and budget implementation, speedy decision making and inter-agency coordination are mentioned in the budget of the next fiscal year. "The budget is based on realistic estimates of income and expenditure," said Paudel, "by increasing the allocation of capital expenditure, current expenditure has been kept within limits." He said that 50 percent of the cost ceiling should be applied to the
grant. Paudel claims that projects below 30 million won't be included in the budget in the coming year. "It was not so easy to keep the project under the limit of 3 crores," he said, "but we have allocated the budget under the limit of 3 crores, we have removed 4 thousand 654 projects from the budget this time." "It is clear what kind of decisions were made in which period, which budget did what with regard to electric vehicles (EV) in Nepal," he said.
Finance Minister Paudel said that many points, including raising the age of receiving old-age allowance to 70 years, have been included in the budget as suggested by the high-level reform suggestion commission led by former secretary Rameshwar Khanal. "After receiving the report of the commission, an implementation action plan has been prepared under the coordination of Secretary Chudamani Paudel," he said.
He said that the domestic loan was offered 13 billion less than the limit given by the National Natural Resources and Finance Commission. "In the economic bill, the scope of health risk tax has been expanded and taxes have been imposed on tobacco, khaini, gutkha, panmasala, scented betel nut, mouth freshener and hookah flavor," he said.
According to him, the excise duty has been levied on the basis of quantity on cement, but excise duty has been levied on the basis of price and excise duty has been increased by 5 percent on premium cigarettes and 3 percent on cheap cigarettes. Finance Minister Paudel said that a large number of taxpayers who have not submitted their details for value added tax for a long time will be exempted from fines, additional charges and interest if they submit their details and tax. "The provision of bank guarantee to be kept by the export-import industry when taking EXIM code has been removed," he said. Finance Minister Paudel claims that the budget will expand economic activities, increase private sector investment, increase employment opportunities and achieve economic growth of 6 percent if infrastructure projects are completed on time.
