2018, May 15
In a departure from tradition, the government is set to introduce its fiscal policies and programmes spelling out a five-year roadmap. According to officials, all the ministries have been directed to come up with annual policies and five-year programmes separately for their sectors.
As decided by the Cabinet on Monday, President Bidya Devi Bhandari will present the government’s policies and programmes in the federal parliament on May 21.
Since this is the first government in decades expected to last full five years, devising five-year programmes makes sense, said officials privy to the developments. Chief Secretary Lok Darshan Regmi is meeting government secretaries separately, directing them to come up with five-year roadmaps alongside annual policies and programmes, said two government secretaries.
The document will address economic development, infrastructure, health, agriculture and social issues. “We’re told to come up with a vision and achievable targets for the next five years,” said the secretaries, expressing difficulty in setting new priorities as many have been announced in previous years. But there is pressure from the political level to have fresh ideas so that people can realize change even as their lists have already been presented to the Prime Minister’s Office, said secretaries. The five-year schemes are said to have been motivated by the likelihood of a stable government as ruling communist allies CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Centre) are working on party unification.
The secretaries have been directed to chart out strategic five-year plans for the ministry they represent, senior officials said.“This is the vision paper of the government, which will be somehow forward-looking this time,” said Kundan Aryal, press adviser to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. The government is preparing to expand the Janata Awas programme, which concerns building affordable homes for the poor from the Tarai to the Hills and Mountain areas. Besides, the emphasis is said to be on agriculture, increased production and infrastructure. The PM’s Office will form a mechanism to devise ways to meet these periodic targets. The office will have a major role in monitoring the programmes and projects.
