Finance Minister Dr. Swarnim Wagle presented the budget statement for fiscal year 2083/84 at the joint meeting of the Federal Parliament. The government has announced a total budget of Rs. 2,124.34 billion, including Rs. 1,270.58 billion for recurrent expenditure, Rs. 431.10 billion for capital expenditure, and Rs. 422.64 billion for financing arrangements.

The budget focuses on structural reform, cost control and governance improvement. The government plans to reduce federal ministries from 22 to 18, abolish 31 bodies, merge six bodies, transfer six bodies and restructure 18 bodies. The budget also includes legal and policy reforms to improve investment, simplify foreign investment approval, strengthen revenue administration, improve capital expenditure and make public service delivery more digital and accountable.

Major priorities include infrastructure, clean energy, agriculture, tourism, education, health and technology. The government has allocated Rs. 286.48 billion for road and urban infrastructure, Rs. 218.30 billion for education, Rs. 101.95 billion for health, Rs. 85.54 billion for energy, Rs. 46.92 billion for agriculture and livestock, and Rs. 37.17 billion for drinking water and sanitation. The budget also proposes Nepal’s first sovereign AI compute center, expansion of digital public infrastructure, reforms in Nepal Electricity Authority, promotion of startups, hydropower development, tourism branding and modernization of agriculture.

To finance the budget, the government expects to raise Rs. 1,405.31 billion from revenue, Rs. 61.74 billion from foreign grants, Rs. 247.28 billion from foreign loans, and Rs. 410 billion from domestic borrowing. The budget also increases the basic salary scale of public employees by 10 percent, introduces a performance-based monthly incentive equal to 10 percent of the new pay scale, and projects that more than Rs. 600 billion will be mobilized to provincial and local levels through revenue sharing and fiscal transfers.