Kathmandu, June 20: The House of Representatives approved the government’s annual budget for the fiscal year 2025–26, paving the way for the implementation of Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel’s Rs1.96 trillion financial plan.

Speaker Devraj Ghimire, who presided over the session, announced that the Appropriation Bill—first presented by Minister Paudel on May 29—had been passed by a majority vote in Parliament.

Before the bill’s endorsement, lawmakers went through a detailed, clause-by-clause discussion and introduced several proposals aiming to slash the budget allocated to different ministries. However, all of these expenditure-reduction motions were rejected by a majority.

The budget, unveiled in a joint session of the Federal Parliament, proposes a total expenditure of Rs1.964 trillion for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in mid-July—marking a notable increase compared to the previous year. A total of 22 lawmakers, including Amresh Kumar Singh, Prabhu Sah, Durga Rai, Prem Suwal, Amarnath Modi, Janardan Sharma, and others, had submitted the cost-cutting proposals, which were ultimately voted down.

Earlier, answering queries raised by lawmakers, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli argued that the budget for the upcoming fiscal year is balanced to the maximum extent possible.     

Responding to the queries of House of Representatives (HoR) members in Tuesday's HoR meeting, Prime Minister Oli assured to maintain balance in the budget allocation in the coming days, adding that all lawmakers cannot be made content due to a lack of sufficient capacity of the state.     

"We need prompt and wider development, but the budget is limited. So, all lawmakers could not remain satisfied with the budget. Attention will be paid in the coming days to maintain balance between demand and supply," the PM said, answering the questions of lawmakers in the budget allocation for the Office of the President, the Office of the Vice President, the Office of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers and its line agencies.