Finance Minister Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat earned both bouquets and brickbats for the budget he presented at the parliament, Thursday afternoon.

Former finance minister and senior leader of Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) Bharat Mohan Adhikary slammed Dr. Mahat for “neglecting the agriculture and cooperative sector.”

“I think the budget is positively geared towards health, education and even industrial sector. He has come up with some good programmes in these areas. But he just did a flop-show on agriculture,” said Adhikary.

Narayan Man Bijukchhe, president of Nepal Workers and Peasants Party (NWPP), went a step ahead charging the Finance Minister of totally side-stepping the majority of Nepali population, who he said belonged to farming and working community. “He has stressed on privatisation. I see chances of individuals getting richer but the nation getting poorer,” he said.

Dr. Shankar Sharma, former vice chairman of National Planning Commission (NPC), praised the finance minister for giving continuity to economic reforms and many other past programmes. “The size of the budget is indeed too large. But he could not help it given the need to spend on unproductive sectors such as elections, camp management, and pay hike,” he said.

Industrialist Binod Chaudhary also heaved a sigh of relief that despite having to build consensus among eight parties including the Maoists, the budget had “maintained the basic direction (of reforms and liberalisation).”

Finance Minister Dr. Mahat himself defended his budget saying that he had “tried to strike a balance between political limitations and economic aspirations.” He is a finance minister of an interim government of eight parties including Maoists. The eight party alliance consists of liberal democratic as well as radical leftist parties.

“I have tried to bring the economic agenda to the center stage. Because even though we have major political challenges, we cannot give any less priority to economic issues at all,” he said. Dr. Mahat conceded that budget announcements alone do not ‘transform society.’ “What is required is total commitment from all and sincere implementation,” he said.

Dr. Mahat earlier presented Rs 168.99 billion worth budget for the fiscal year 2007/08 at the parliament.