By Our Reporter 

The government should compulsorily present an annual budget on May 29 following the constitutional provision. However, as the government delayed in summoning the budget session, there may not be adequate pre-budget discussion this time. The secretariat of the parliament is exercising to suspend the provision of a 15-day pre-budget discussion so that the budget could be tabled on May 29.

Before tabling the budget, the government will unveil its policy and programme. Prime Minister Deuba, is suspicious about whether President Bidya Devi Bhandari will read out the policy and programme of the government because as a former vice-chair of the CPN-UML, she is too loyal to UML chair KP Sharma Oli, who wants to pull down the government at any cost. Yet, the government has prepared to unveil its document on May 21 and as per the constitutional provision. The President will read out the document.

Obviously, the government will introduce an-election oriented budget this year, as the parliamentary elections will be held in November/December this year. Even last year, the KP Sharma Oli-led government had introduced an election budget as the Oli government tabled the budget through an ordinance after dissolving the House for the second time with a plan to hold polls in November last year.

As the budget will be brought to lure voters to the ruling parties, it will be distributive. Pay of the civil servants and those serving in government agencies will be hiked. As the size of the budget will be bigger than the budget of the current fiscal year, the tax rate and area will be expanded. Moreover, the budget will surely be in deficit by a large amount. 

When the financial indicators are already negative, the deficit budget will further aggravate the situation. When the government for years has been unable to spend the capital budget, it is not known what makes each government introduce a deficit budget every year. Even this year, the government has spent only 31 per cent of the capital budget as of May 10.