An eye on the elections

It is customary to bring a large budget and then dial down the allocations over the year.

On Sunday, the coalition government presented a Rs1.79 trillion budget in Parliament for the fiscal year 2022-23. But there is little in the government's annual financial plan to alleviate the problems of the people. Rather than addressing the core issues revolving around inflation, job creation and increase in productivity, it is clear from what has been presented in Parliament that the focus lay on appeasement politics with an eye on the coming general elections. It’s one thing to roll out promising schemes, but Nepal’s administrators have always lacked the ability or the intent to implement what they promise. And there is nothing to guarantee that the same policymakers will address the prevalent issues differently.