A one-day workshop was organized on the topic “ Fiscal Federalism in Nepal: current situation and way forward” by NASC coordination with National Natural Resource and Fiscal Commission and Ministry of Finance on 25th Baisakh, 2081 at Prithvi Hal, Dikshya Sadan. The event was chaired by Dr Rajan Khanal, ED, NASC. and Hon’able Prof. Dr. Shivaraj Adhikari, member, National Planning Commission provided his insights on the presentations. Master of Ceremony, Mr. Trilochan Poudyal, formally introduced the presenters, experts, and the chair of the event, Dr. Rajan Khanal, Executive Director, NASC. Mr. Tulsi Sharan Sigdel, Senior Director of Studies, Head of Department, Centre for Federalism Studies delivered a welcome address and shared his expectations of the workshop being a fruitful one.
Hon’ble Balananda Paudel, Chair, of the National Natural Resource and Fiscal Commission (NNRFC) presented the status of fiscal federalism and the rationale of federalism in instilling the values of cooperation and coordination among all tiers of government. He further added on the constitutional arrangement of fiscal federalism provided to different levels of government including the expenditure assignment, revenue assignment, intergovernmental fiscal transfers, and internal borrowing. He further added on the rationale of the demarcation of fiscal responsibilities among different levels of government. He also shared how fiscal federalism is being exercised in the country along with different constitutional and institutional mechanisms to strengthen federalism. He also shared the trend of Inter-Government Fiscal Transfer and how the different levels of government should cooperate to efficiently use the resources.
Mr. Gopi Krishna Khanal, Former Secretary of NNRFC, shared the core concept of fiscal federalism and the operational definition of fiscal federalism. He further presented how IGFT helps reduce horizontal fiscal imbalances between different governments at the same tier. He further shared the demarcation of different equalization grants in Nepal.
The floor was open for discussion and the participants shared their concerns and queries on the contents of the presentation. Hon’able Prof. Dr. Shiva Raj Adhikari shared his observations from both the presentations. He added the ‘and’ at the theme of today’s workshop has great meaning and should be studied the process on which we move from the current status to the way forward of Fiscal Federalism in Nepal Finally, the workshop was concluded upon the remarks by Dr. Rajan Khanal, Executive Director, NASC. He added that continuous discourse like today’s workshop is necessary for the successful implementation of federalism in Nepal. Dr.Khanal extended words of gratitude to the Ministry of Finance and the National Natural Resource and Fiscal Commission for coming together to organize such an informative event.
