Strong opposition to replacement budget: Former Finance Minister Bishnu Poudel

KATHMANDU: SEPT. 12 – CPN-UML leader and former finance minister Bishnu Poudel has said that there should be a strong protest against the replacement budget brought by the government.

At a meeting of the UML parliamentary party in Singha Durbar, Poudel said that the budget of important projects has been cut in the new budget, 1400 projects in the study have been postponed, projects put forward by UML have been cut, financial discipline has been violated and they should protest.

He claims that the budget has been allocated for projects that are not even demanded by the concerned department or ministry and the government has tried to create a mentality that the previous government has increased the size of the budget unnecessarily by symbolically reducing the budget.

Although the 10 per cent cut in general expenditure was welcomed, Poudel also commented that its intention was corrupt.

According to Poudel, the issue of 7 per cent economic growth has been put back and the previous government had said 6.5 per cent but now it is 7 per cent on back.