The Karnali government, which is preparing to present the budget for the upcoming fiscal year in the parliament meeting to be held at 3 pm on Monday, is going to present the budget with some increase. The government, which brought a budget of 32.99 billion rupees in the current fiscal year, is expected to increase the budget by one to two billion rupees to around 33 to 34 billion next year. 

In preparation for increasing the budget, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Planning of the provincial government had distributed a ceiling of about 32 billion rupees to the ministries, increasing it by one percent compared to last year.

An official of the ministry said that the budget is expected to be increased in size as the grant given by the federal government has also increased compared to last year. According to him, the federal government has provided a grant of 17.2 billion rupees for the upcoming fiscal year. While in the current fiscal year, it provided a grant of 16.4 billion rupees.

‘Grants have also increased, and the provincial consolidated fund is also expected to collect more money than last year,’ he said, ‘Although it will not increase much, we expect an increase of 1 to 2 billion rupees.’

Ministry spokesperson Chetan Kumar Timilsena informed that for the coming year, the federal government has provided 10.63 billion rupees for fiscal equalization, 5.42 billion rupees for conditional grants, 480 million rupees for special grants, and 660 million rupees for complementary grants. In the current fiscal year, the Karnali government had received 10.27 billion rupees for revenue sharing.

It is estimated that the same amount will be received next year as well, and the financial transfer limit is expected to reach about 27 billion rupees, said spokesperson Timilsena. According to him, it is estimated that there will be a saving of 5 to 7 billion rupees in the provincial consolidated fund this fiscal year.

The Karnali government had set a target of earning 960 million rupees in the current fiscal year. However, it has earned only 599.6 million rupees by the end of Baisakh. He informed that the revenue collection is estimated to be around the same for the coming year as well. 

Minister for Economic Affairs and Planning Rajiv Bikram Shah said that the preparation work for the budget has reached the final stage. ‘The budget will come within the policies and programs, we have given infrastructure development as the main priority, and some new programs will also be included,’ he said, ‘Our preparation is to bring the budget in a way that raises the hopes of the citizens, we are bringing a budget that will be implemented as much as possible and will also prioritize revenue collection.’