Coalition govt budget: From economic relief to additional social security

KATHMANDU: The government has come up with a measure to cut off all meeting allowances under the recurrent costs and subsequently utilize the savings of Rs 5 billion for the procurement of vaccines against COVID-19.

In the Friday meeting of the House of Representatives (HoR), Finance Minister Janardan Sharma presented a substitution bill of the budget of the current fiscal year which announced curtailment of meeting allowance, fuel, maintenance, staff training cost, skills development and public awareness training and workshop costs, program costs, monitoring and evaluation costs, visit costs and miscellaneous program costs at a minimum rate of ten percent. The amount of Rs 5 billion to be saved from the proposed austerity measure would be utilized to purchase vaccines, shared Finance Minster Sharma.