Finance Minister Dr Mahat would respond to the lawmakers’ queries in Thursday’s meeting.

Speaking at the meeting today, the opposition lawmakers criticized the budget for being ‘conventional’ and for failing to adequately address the ongoing transitional politics and the situation emerged after the earthquakes.

They even said that the budget has failed to place emphasis on propelling economic revolution of the country and is imbalanced and incapable to stop exodus of labour forces to foreign countries. They also lashed out government for unequal allocation of budget in the electoral constituencies.

The lawmakers criticizing the budget said that it is ot inclusive but of a party and fails to go for economic self-reliance.

The budget has not paid proper attention to make the loss-stripped public enterprises as service oriented and profit-making, martyrs of people’s war were neglected, discrimination was meted out between lawmakers of the direct and proportional electoral systems and issue of Madrasa education was not included in the budget, the lawmakers added.
The UML lawmakers took exception to the omission of the name of Pushpalal from the Pushpalal Mid Hill Highway and said that the budget for the UML lawmakers was like a ‘hot water in the mouth’.

The lawmakers also stressed for the development of reservoir-based hydropower project, bringing land use policy and increasing salary of the government employees.

However, the lawmakers of ruling Nepali Congress said that the budget is highly positive as it has included aspirations of all walks of life. They argued the country’s economic development would witness a complete change provided that it was effectively implemented.

Lawmakers Daljit BK Shripaili, Raju Khanal, Bidhyadevi Bhandari, Ram Kumar Bhattarai, Gauri Shankar Chaudhary, Rajendra Kumar KC, Dharmendra Kumr Shah Teli, Sushil Kumar Shrestha, Anita Devkota, Balram Adhikari, Mohammad Jakir Hussein, Abdul Rajak Siddhiki and Ammar Bahadur Thapa had aired their views on the budget.

Likewise, other lawmakers taking part in the general discussions include Parshuram Tamang, Amanlal Modi, Panchkarna Rai, Prem Bahadur Ale, Resham Bahadur Baniya, Nisha Kumari Sah, Prakash Jwala, Shakti Bahadur Basnet, Rabin Koirala, Ramhari Khatiwada, Hitraj Pandey, Sharada Poudel and others.

The next meeting of the legislature-parliament shall begin at 11:00 am tomorrow. RSS