By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, June 15: House of Representatives on Sunday endorsed three dependent bills of ‘Appropriation Bill 2020/21’ with majority votes. The Lower House of the parliament endorsed the Financial Bill, Bill to Raise Public Debt-2077, and Loan and Guarantee Bill (24th Amendment) today.
Prior to this, the lawmakers asked questions about the draft of the bills. Former minister Dr Minendra Rijal and lawmaker Prem Suwal demanded for some changes in the drafts.
However, their proposal of custom duty abolition on electric vehicles import and corrections in other dependent bill drafts was rejected by the majority votes. “The government has to justify why additional burden of taxes was imposed on petrol and diesel,” they said.
Finance Minister Dr Yuba Raj Khatiwada said that tax rates were revised on the basis of economic principles and priorities of international trade. “It’s a genuine revision. We are aware enough for the changes we made,” he clarified.
He also argued that the state of revenue generation was not good due to the COVID-19 pandemic and said government had no better options of collecting revenue for meeting its daily expenses. “The situation is quite unpredictable, therefore I expect for a unity regarding this issue,” he added.
However, the minister said that there was greater possibility of obtaining grants and loans from donors. “Managing loans from donors is possible because we have achieved several commitments at the time of budget formation,” he said. According to him donors are ready for budgetary assistance.
Dr Khatiwada himself had tabled the bills in the House seeking approval.