Lalitpur.
CPN-UML Bagmati State Assembly Whip Madhusudan Paudel has commented that in the situation of extreme economic crisis, the Bagmati State Government is going to increase general expenditure when it has to reduce wasteful expenditure. Speaking on behalf of the parliamentary party about the principles and priorities of the Appropriation Bill 2080 presented by the government in the Provincial Assembly on Thursday (except the tax proposal), Poudel said that the bill does not mention anything concrete about the policy of the next provincial government to resolve the economic crisis.
Paudel urged the government not to buy a single government vehicle in the next financial year to reduce expenses and to purchase electric vehicles if necessary. He said, ‘We also have this proposal, let’s not use gas fuel in all government offices of Bagmati province, let’s use electric stoves. can’t we A lot of expenses are being incurred from the gases that are burned in our government offices. Why can’t we announce this in such a situation?’ He has informed about many such topics from his party and has requested to implement them.
This is the question raised by whip Paudel in the parliament
During the discussion of the principles and priorities of the Appropriation Bill 2080 other than the tax proposal, the Honorable Minister of Economic Affairs and Planning Bahadur Singh Lama called me a few days ago and asked for the party’s suggestion. At the outset, I would like to thank the Hon’ble Finance Minister for initiating this ceremony. I also sent a written suggestion on behalf of the party parliamentary group by email. However, I found many things missing in how much study was or was not. In fact, free market economics is a principle that has failed in many periods of history. We find that the world today has mostly gone into a free socialist economy. We have also mentioned in our constitution that our economy will be oriented towards socialism. Based on that, it is said that our economic policy is based on three pillars of government, private and cooperative sectors. But the more I studied about the priority of this policy and program, I found that it was guided by the principles of the old type of completely free market economics. Similarly, this program seems to repeat the old policies and programs along with the copy and paste of the central government program. I saw the need to improve it.
In addition to that, we are currently in a very severe economic crisis. It is said that there is very little economic growth on the part of the provincial government. In such a situation, it does not mention concretely what will be the policy of the next provincial government to solve the economic crisis. Now we are seeing that the cooperative sector is in ruins, there is a lack of capital in the banks. Where is the money going, where is it hidden? How to make the capital run in the market? It is necessary to come up with a concrete policy of the state government on such matters, which I have not found in this appropriation bill. We have mentioned similar cost reduction in our suggestion. I don’t see that this proposal also mentions the reduction of wasteful expenses on the need to bring concrete things. Also, as soon as the economic policy and the bill are mentioned, the matter of economic discipline comes up in it, but the obvious issue of economic discipline is not even mentioned.
Rather than reducing expenditure, the current provincial government is going towards increasing general expenditure. Yesterday we had an 11-member cabinet, earlier this government had a 7-member cabinet. That too went well. In the intervening period it was increased to 14. Let’s not talk too much about that now. Why are we increasing from 11 to 12 now? We say that there is a lot of economic crisis in the province, and we don’t even talk about spending cuts in practice? In this way, it seems that the adage of “Hera Kam Kuro” is still applicable.
It is our proposal that the Bagmati State Government should not purchase a single new vehicle this financial year. Can’t we? If you have to, buy an electric car. We also have this proposal, let’s not use gas fuel in all government offices of Bagmati state level, let’s use electric stoves. can’t we A lot of expenses are being incurred from the gases that are burned in our government offices. Why can’t we go ahead with this announcement? We have written many such topics, let them be implemented.
In addition to that, a lot has been said about agriculture, other dignitaries have also raised issues. Opening of organic fertilizer factory is not mentioned, good governance is not mentioned, in terms of education, a kind of dual education policy has been implemented in Nepal, government and policy school education. Two types of manpower have been produced from this. This bill does not include the policy of changing the mentality of poor working class people to enroll in government schools.
Even then, CPN-UML had a disagreement about the Lottery Bill, and it still has disagreements now. The government’s orientation is to solve the problems of the people here, there is no need to rush to bring a bill to solve the problem of black market. That bill was passed on the 12th of Baisakh on the basis of minority and majority votes. An honorable friend asked why they agreed to this issue yesterday, I want to make it clear that CPN-UML has never agreed to propose and pass the Lottery Bill. If necessary, the parliament record of Baisakh 12 can be viewed.