By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, May 29: Economists and business leaders have welcomed the new budget citing that it was brought to face the present challenges posed by COVID-19.
Economist and former vice-chairman of National Planning Commission Dr Shankar Sharma said that the priorities of the budget and its allocation were positive to face the challenges created by COVID-19.
“The budget has given emphasis to the health sector, employment generation and the relief to the affected sector, which are encouraging at this abnormal time,” he said.
The government has touched all sectors of its priorities in the budget, he said, adding that the budget allocation for agriculture had remained low even though it had increased this year compared to last year.
“It will be challenging for the government to create more jobs even if it introduced various programmes and package to create jobs for the youths due to lack of institutional capacities,” he said.
Sharma said that it would be challenging to achieve the targeted economic growth of 7 per cent and receive the foreign loan and grant of Rs 360 billion in the next fiscal year.
President of Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) Satish Kumar More said that the new budget had tried to revive the private sector which was affected badly by the lockdown caused by COVID-19.
“The budget has created a ray of hope that the government is facilitating the private sector through the relief progarmmes to emerge from the crisis and make the country’s economy vibrant,” he said.
He stressed on implementing programmes of the budget properly for accelerating the economic activities and save the lives of people from COVID-19.
President of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry Bhawani Rana said that the budget was likely to boost up the confidence of the private sector.
The relief packages to the affected sectors including tourism, industries, and micro, cottage and small industries are positive, she said, adding that the government had introduced stimulus package almost equal to 5 per cent of GDP which had addressed the demand of the private sector.
The government has managed the refinance facility of Rs 100 billion to revive the affected sectors including tourism and small industries.
She, however, said that the government did not address the demand of private sector on tax issues.
Economist Dr Dilli Raj Khanal said that the budget was still unable to bring solid programmes with resource allocation to revive the economy from COVID-19.
He, however, said the budget allocated in the health sector with extensive programmes and infrastructure development for the local levels was positive to fight the communicable diseases like coronavirus.
Khanal said that focus of the budget to deduct the unnecessary expenditure of the government, merge the management of same type of government enterprises were also positive.
But the government has to implement the programmes effectively to achieve the goal, he said.
President of the Nepal Chamber of Commerce (NCC) Rajesh Kazi Shrestha said that the budget was good as it had given due priority to health and employment generation which was the present need in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.
The government has allocated huge amount of budget of above Rs 90 billion in the health sector which is positive to save lives, but it failed to introduce relief package to accelerate the economic activities and revive the COVID-19 affected economy, he said.
“We felt that the budget allocation under the relief for the private sector is still insufficient to boost the private sector’s confidence and run the industries smoothly,” he said.

Likewise, former Prime Minister Dr Baburam Bhattrai was happy for exclusive focus of government on health. However, he was disappointed over absence of targeted programmes to meet the current crisis.
“Allocation of only 22 billion for COVID-19 prevention and treatment is not appropriate. It cannot solve health crisis that we are facing now,” he said, adding that small allocation for health was like hiring a shaman to treat a cancer patient.
Last year Rs 68 billion was allocated in health sector which has increased to Rs 90 billion this time.
Former Finance Minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki said that the document would neither encourage the workers nor the students and poor.
Another Former Finance Minister Surendra Pandey said that the budget estimation was sound in general. “Actual budget has been unveiled, however, constraints of execution are still there,” he said. Getting 7 per cent growth is ambitious, he said, adding that taking foreign debt is not as easy as mentioned in the budget.
“COVID-19 pandemic has badly affected global economy, the government has committed to expanding internal loans on capital expenditure which is good,” he said. Pandey also said borrowing internally would lead to liquidity crunch and that would pressurise the economy.
NC lawmaker Binod Chaudhary said that the size of budget was fine but the relief package for industries was inadequate.
Janta Samajwadi Party Nepal leader Laxmanlal Karna said he was not happy with the budget document. He said COVID-19 was mentioned well in the budget but its requirements were not addressed.
Karna said the budget had been scattered into several areas without exclusive focus. “Such budget does not support the government to fulfil its annual or mid-term target,” he added.
He also said the issues of managing agriculture, tourism and migrant workers were not defined well as per the demand of the critical time.