President Ramchandra Paudel on Tuesday presented the government’s policies and programmes which incorporated many old programmes. The ruling alliance called the document a departure from norm while opposition parties said that there is nothing new in the document and so further discussion in Parliament is unnecessary.

The 55-page document that set the priorities of the government also offered some new propositions which the opposition parties labelled ‘vague’ and ‘incomplete’.

Paudel in his address said implementing the constitution, shoring up federalism and economy, and controlling corruption are the government's major priorities.

The document also states that the scope of social welfare schemes will be expanded, 5,000 new jobs created in the information and technology sector, startup loans will be extended to 1,000 youths and installed capacity of hydropower projects in the country will be increased from the existing 2,940 megawatt to 4,500 megawatt.

The government also invoked the slogan of “Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali” (Samriddha Nepal, Sukhi Nepali), the CPN-UML’s flagship initiative, in the policies and programmes.

“There is no need to discuss the document,” said Nepali Congress spokesman and former finance minister Prakash Sharan Mahat. “There is nothing new here.”

But the ruling parties praised the document and claimed that it lays the platform for an economic march.

“Compared to the previous policies and programmes, today’s document has some new features,” said Swarnim Wagle, a parliamentarian from the Rastriya Swatantra Party. Wagle is a noted economist who earlier served as the vice-chairman of the National Planning Commission.

The government has emphasised promotion of good governance, streamlining public services, and establishing a citizen-friendly governance system, said Paudel, while announcing 2024-2034 as a decade devoted to promoting agriculture.

He said the investment of public, private, cooperatives and development sectors in the agricultural sector will be increased. He also announced that programmes in agriculture will be restructured so as to make the country self-sufficient, mainly in food and vegetables.

In his speech, the President said the government is committed to attracting private capital and bringing foreign investment. The government will work towards boosting the morale of industrialists and businesspersons, the President said.

As the country is grappling with an unprecedented cooperatives crisis, the government has proposed setting up a powerful tribunal as well as an effective loan recovery mechanism and a regulatory body to oversee the sector.

“The document does not address the concerns and grievances of the people and issues raised by the opposition parties,” said Mahat, the Congress spokesperson. “The government has merely performed its duty and maintained the tradition of presenting the annual policies and programmes in Parliament.”

Reading out the document, Paudel said the government will soon launch a sovereign credit rating system in order to attract foreign investment, claiming that 98 percent of the population now has access to electricity and that the export of electricity to India and Bangladesh has been assured.

An agreement was reached between Nepal and India last December to export 10,000 megawatts of electricity in 10 years.

There has as yet been no formal agreement between Nepal and Bangladesh to export electricity to Bangladesh using India's transmission infrastructure. But the per unit price of electricity to be exported to Bangladesh has been agreed.

Paudel said special emphasis will be on building hospitals in local units. In 2021, the then KP Sharma Oli-led government had also announced plans to build at least one hospital in every local unit and initiated the process to construct 396 hospitals. Progress on most of them, however, is dismal. Paudel said that health insurance has been extended to all local governments.

Despite the widened reach of the health insurance programme, people's participation in it has not increased. Worse, those who bought the insurance scheme in the past did not renew it because of low coverage.

The government aims to expedite work on national pride projects such as Sikta, Babai, Ranijmara-Kularia, Bheri-Babai and Sunkoshi-Marin diversion multi-purpose projects. An Integrated Karnali Irrigation Development Programme will be implemented in Karnali Province. Other programmes of water resource conservation are replenishment of aquifers and construction of ponds to expand irrigation schemes.

“This year, unlike previous years, you will see good compatibility and correlation between the policies and programmes and the budget,” said Wagle, the parliamentarian. “This year, we are not going to talk about big things but want to bring incremental changes in several sectors.”

The idea is to incorporate some new programmes and effect changes in every ministry, said Wagle. “The policies and programmes have been so designed. This is a departure from the previous policies and programmes,” he added.

The government also announced the “President Climate Change Management Programme” to address the effects of climate change in the mountains, hills and the plains in an integrated manner.

The document promises to implement the national policy and action plan for mitigating the effects of climate change, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction. There is a plan to establish Nepal’s leading role in internationalising the impact of climate change on the Himalayan regions, according to the document.

The government has also proposed a specialised body for the supervision and regulation of credit cooperatives. It is also the government’s policy, says the document, to protect the savings and investment of the cooperative sector through the Cooperative Savings and Credit Protection Fund, the Cooperative Credit Information Centre and the Cooperative Debt Recovery Tribunal.

The identification of poor households would be completed within the next financial year. The government also proposes reviving sick firms, routinely like many previous such documents. ‘The prime minister’s self-reliance programme for daughters’ has received much attention both in and outside Parliament.

“From forestry to resource mobilisation to poverty reduction to irrigation, we are following the same old path,” said a government secretary, requesting anonymity. “The real challenge is improving the country’s overall economic status. Micro-level economic indicators of every household in the country are bleak, people are leaving their businesses and jobs, and are going abroad but the government’s policies and programmes do not address these woes in any way.”

Finance Minister Barsha Man Pun said the government has brought a good list of policies and programmes and there would be enough links between them and the national budget.

Speaking to the reporters after the President presented the document, he said a new budget would be tabled in line with the document.