Fiscal Arrangements for the Poorest of Poor in Federal Nepal

Uma Shankar Prasad, PhD

Centre for Economic Development & Administration (CEDA)

Introduction:

Poverty is a complex multidimensional problem. It is a holistic approach of human deprivation and a reflection of lack of dynamism in society. Except hunger and malnutrition, several other aspects have been advocated in conceptualizing poverty, such as deprivation in terms of clothing, shelter, basic social services including primary health care, sanitation, education etc., political powerlessness and socio-cultural marginalization among others.

The importance of poverty reduction and improvement of the living standards of the people has been emphasized in almost all the plans in Nepal directly or indirectly. However, poverty reduction as an explicit goal of planning in Nepal was made only in the mid-1980s. The Seventh Five Year Plan (1985-90) was the first attempt to integrate long term poverty reduction into the planning process. The Three-year Interim Plan (2007/08 – 2009/10) was implemented with the main objective to realize changes in the life of Nepalese people by reducing poverty and existing unemployment and establishing sustainable peace in the country. The vision of this plan is to build a prosperous, modern and just Nepal with special attention towards inclusive development by involving women, Dalits, indigenous groups, Madhesi community, the poor, inhabitants of Karnali area and people of remote areas in the country's economic, social and regional development process.

The main objective of the Three Year Plan (2010/11 – 2012/13) is to enable people to feel change in their livelihood and quality of life by supporting poverty alleviation and establishment of sustainable peace through employment centric, inclusive and equitable economic growth (Three Year Plan Approach Paper, NPC, 2010) by considering the future federal states.

Nepal is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious, and multi-cultural country. After a long peoples’ struggle, the historic peoples’ movement 2006 and the Madhesh movement 2007, the article 138 (1) of interim constitution 2007 as modified in the first amendment has declared Nepal to be an inclusive and Federal Democratic Republic state to bring an end to discrimination based on class, caste, language, gender, culture, religion and region by eliminating the centralized and unitary form of the state to lay a foundation for economic and social transformation to build a prosperous, modern and just new Nepal. It says:

Accepting the aspirations of indigenous ethnic groups and the people of the backward and other regions, and the people of Madhesh, for autonomous provinces, Nepal shall be a Federal Democratic Republic. The provinces shall be autonomous with full rights. The constituent assembly shall determine the number, boundary, names and structures of the autonomous provinces and the distribution of powers and resources, while maintaining the sovereignty, unity and integrity of Nepal.

Madheshi Dalits are the poorest of the poor among ethnic groups in Nepal. They have fallen into the vicious circle of poverty largely due to illiteracy, low income and employment, socio-economic and political discrimination, little land etc. In this context, this article analyzes the current fiscal situations as well as proposed fiscal arrangements for federal Nepal in relation to poverty alleviation of Madheshi Dalits.

II. The poorest of the poor in Nepalese society:

With a per capita income of US$ 490 (US$ 1,200 in PPP term) in 2010 (WDR, 2012), Nepal is a poor country with highly stratified society.  Poverty is estimated to be at 25 per cent in 2009. The recent Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MPI)-UN Human Development Report has put it at 65 per cent based on a new methodology developed by the Oxford University. The World Bank has viewed that everyone, except few professionals, businessman and some large farmers in Nepal are poor (World Bank, 1999).

There are wide variations in poverty level based on rural-urban divide, geography, gender, ethnic groups and occupational castes. The Terai/Madheshi Dalits[1] are the poorest of the poor among ethnic groups in Nepal. They have been socially, economically and politically marginalized from the very beginning to present in Nepal's history. They have been at the lowest end of the Hindu social caste hierarchy based on birth. Over the long period of the past, the social system ascribed occupation to this group was characterized by very low productivity. Consequently, this group remained at the lowest end of economic hierarchy as well. Their participation in all the bodies of governance: main political parties, cabinet, parliament, legislature, judiciary, civil service has been negligible.

Table 1: Human development by caste and ethnicity, 2006
Caste/ethnicity	Population (%)	Life expectancy at birth	Adult literacy (%)	Mean years of schooling	Per capita income (PPP income in US$)	Human development index	Ratio to national HDI	Rank of HDI
All Nepal	100.0	63.7	52.4	3.2	1597	0.509	100.0
Hill Brahman	13.7	68.1	69.9	5.4	2395	0.612	120.1	3
Hill Chhetri	17.2	60.6	58.4	3.7	1736	0.514	100.8	5
Tarai/Madhesi-Brahman/Chhetri	1.9	63.9	83.8	6.4	2333	0.625	122.7	1
Tarai/Madhesi-Other Caste	12.9	61.9	41.8	2.3	1119	0.450	88.3	8
Hill Dalits	7.1	60.9	45.5	2.1	1099	0.449	88.2	9
Tarai/Madhesi-Dalits	4.7	61.3	27.3	1.2	743	0.383	75.1	11
Newar	5.5	68.0	68.0	4.7	3097	0.616	120.9	2
Hill/Mountain-Janjati	21.7	63.6	53.8	3.0	1490	0.507	99.5	6
Tarai/Madhesi-Janjati	9.8	61.5	48.1	2.8	1224	0.470	92.3	7
Muslim	4.3	61.0	30.3	1.6	890	0.401	78.7	10
Others	1.0	66.3	58.0	3.7	2227	0.559	109.7	4
Source: Nepal Human Development Report 2009, UNDP

Although Nepal Human Development Report 2009 reveals that the HDI value increased by 8 per cent from 0.471 in 2001 to 0.509 for the whole country in 2006, it varies more widely by caste and ethnicity. The Madhesi Dalits who constitute about 5 per cent of Nepal’s total population has the lowest HDI value (Table 1).

About 80 per cent of the Madheshi Dalits live below the poverty line. The literacy rate of Musahar was just 7.28 compared to national average of 53.73 in 2001 census (CBS, 2003). The vulnerability of Dalits is not simply due to their poverty, economical status, or lack of education, but is a result of the severe exploitation and suppression by the upper classes.

The condition of female Dalits is even worse. Female infanticide is more prevalent among the uneducated Dalit families. Gender discrimination starts at the very early stage in the life of a Dalit girl. Early marriage, polygamy, permanent widowhood etc. are deep-rooted. Therefore, Dalit women face triple burden of caste, class and gender in Nepalese society.  

III. Current fiscal situation and proposed fiscal arrangements for federal Nepal  

The concept paper and preliminary draft report of the CA Committee on the State Restructuring and Power Sharing has proposed 14 provinces (Limbuwan, Tamuwan, Tamsaling, Sunkoshi, Sherpa, Newa, Narayani, Mithila Bhojpura Koch Madhesh, Magrat, Lumbini Awadh Tharuwan, Kirat, Karnali, Jadan, and Khaptad) for federal Nepal. The proposed Mithila Bhojpura Koch Madhesh province will cover around 20 per cent and Lumbini Awadh Tharuwan province will comprise around 16 per cent of the total population in Federal Nepal as per 2001 census population (Roka, 2011).

The name given to Mithila Bhojpura Koch Madhesh and Lumbini Awadh Tharuwan province seems to be motivated by the theory of 'divide and rule' principle. The name of Mithila Bhojpura Koch Madhesh province itself seems to be representative of 4 provinces. Similarly Lumbini Awadh Tharuwan province seems to be representative of 3 provinces. However, this article analyzes the current fiscal situation on the basis of existing unitary system of the governance because the disaggregated data on fiscal variables for the proposed federal structure is not available.

Figure 2 illustrates that that there is wide variation in the public expenditures in Nepal. The government expenditure is higher in hill compared to other ecological belts.

Existing public expenditure scenario and expenditure assignment for federal Nepal

For nearly 240 years of a unitary system of governance, the regional, social, economic and political inequalities remained more or less unchanged. The culture of sharing wealth among ecological as well as development regions has been pathetic to reduce regional disparities. The sense of national solidarity has not been influential. The emphasis on self-reliance has been prevailing in development process and allocation of resources.

Regional inequality inherent in Nepal is one of the major causes for the need of federalism. The economic literature suggests that public expenditure should be directed more towards the less developed regions. The issue of regional differences in public expenditure has been critical in Nepal. Per capita government expenditure across regions remains highly unequal which is undesirable for egalitarian and just Nepal.

Table 2: Share of public expenditures by ecological and development regions
Region	% share of population in 2011*	% share of public expenditures			Growth rate of public expenditures
		2001/02	2006/07	2009/10	2001/02-2006/07	2006/07-2009/10
Ecological region ·          Mountain ·          Hill ·          Terai	7.1 43.8 49.1	5.6 75.0 19.4	5.4 77.1 17.5	6.2 71.7 22.1	61.0 72.3 51.9	122.9 80.9 144.7
Development region ·          Eastern ·          Central ·          Western ·          Mid-western ·          Far-western	22.7 35.2 19.5 13.0 9.6	11.2 66.3 9.8 7.6 5.0	9.8 67.4 9.7 8.0 5.0	11.8 61.5 11.0 9.7 5.9	47.0 70.6 65.2 77.4 66.8	132.3 77.4 121.0 135.6 131.0
Nepal	100.0	100	100.0	100.0	67.7	94.4
Population Projection for Nepal 2002-2021, Central Bureau of Statistics and UNFPA Nepal, 2003
Source: Consolidated Financial Statements, Various Issues, Financial Comptroller General Office, GoN

Table 2 refers that the share of public expenditures for the hill and the Central Development Region is higher than that of population. In federal Nepal, these disparities in public expenditures will need to be addressed. Since the majority of the poorest of the poor live in Terai region, the more expenditure will have to be allocated to this region for poverty alleviation programmes.

Table 3: Per capita public expenditure and HDI by various areas
Region	Per capita public expenditure			Growth Rate		Human Development Index (HDI)
	2001/02	2006/07	2009/10	2001/02- 2006/07	2006/07- 2009/10	2000	2006	% Change
Ecological Region ·          Mountain ·          Hill ·          Terai	2,663 5,828 1,375	3,904 8,891 1,786	7,985 14,883 4,078	46.6 52.6 29.9	104.5 67.4 128.3	0.378 0.510 0.474	0.436 0.543 0.494	15.3 6.5 4.2
Development Region ·          Eastern ·          Central ·          Western ·          Mid-western ·          Far-western	1,673 6,576 1,714 2,010 1,819	2,205 9,611 2,526 3,117 2,667	4,706 15,882 5,136 6,810 5,612	31.8 46.2 47.4 55.1 46.6	113.4 65.2 103.3 118.5 110.4	0.484 0.493 0.479 0.402 0.385	0.526 0.531 0.516 0.452 0.461	8.7 7.7 7.7 12.4 19.7
Nepal	3,441	5,050	9085	46.8	79.9	0.466	0.509	9.2
Source: Consolidated Financial Statements, Various Issues, Financial Comptroller General Office, GoN

The data presented in Table 3 reveals that the percentage growth in per capita government expenditure has not been consistent with percentage change in human development index across the ecological as well as development regions. The growth rate of per capita government expenditure as well as improvement in HDI has been lowest in Terai and far below than national average.    

Figure 3 demonstrates that the per capita expenditure in Terai has been far below than the national average. For example, per capita capital expenditure was only Rs. 241 and Rs. 242 in Rautahat and Mahottari districts respectively in comparison to national average of Rs. 2,135  in 2006/07 (Prasad, 2009). It is well known that the expenditure need of mountain is higher than other ecological regions due to difficult geographical condition and high incidence of poverty. But this need is never addressed.

Allocation, redistribution and stabilization are three functions of the government. Musgrave argued that the latter two are the primary responsibility of the central government.  Therefore, the central government usually plays a major role in providing pure public good like national defence. Clearly, some functions like stabilization policy, monetary policy, income redistribution policy, foreign affairs, international trade, strategic investments and investment policy must be performed at the national level by the federal government.

Federal government can also play a key planning and financing role in major infrastructure but implementation may be by sub-national governments. However, the central government should focus its role on nationally significant infrastructure like railways and airlines. Federal government can play a major role in shaping health and education programmes.

It is believed that sub-national governments have a comparative advantage in implementing expenditure programmes. The expenditure responsibilities of providing quasi-public good like internal security, maintaining law and order, providing social services like education, health care, family welfare, housing and social security and development of economic services like agriculture, infrastructure, irrigation, power, public works, forestry, fisheries etc. should be assigned to the sub-national governments.

The CA Committee on Natural Resources, Economic Rights and Revenue Allocation has clearly demarked the expenditure responsibilities between three layers of government (central, state and local) in federal Nepal. These expenditure responsibilities will have to be clearly stated in the new constitution to obtain optimal institutional framework for the benefits of economies of scale.

Existing public revenue scenario and revenue assignment for federal Nepal

Being a unitary system of government, the central government collects the major part of direct taxes and the collected taxes are distributed in a prescribed manner in Nepal. For convenience of administration, the country is divided into 5 development regions, 14 zones and 75 districts. Some direct taxes are assigned to collect by local bodies which constitute a small proportion of total direct taxes.

Table 4: Share of government revenue by development regions, 2009/10

S. N.	Development region	Share of government revenue (Per Cent)
1.	Eastern Development Region	8.6
2.	Central Development Region	79.3
3.	Western Development Region	9.0
4.	Mid-western Development Region	2.1
5.	Far-western Development Region	1.0
	Nepal	100.0
Source: Consolidated Financial Statements FY 2005/06, Financial Comptroller General Office, GoN

Table 4 reveals that there is high disparity in tax collection. The Central Development Region collects around 80 per cent of total revenue which includes the contribution of custom duties. Even if custom is taken out, the share of the Central Development Region will be high. The concentration of tax collection will have to be neutralized in federal Nepal.

It is argued that the broad and mobile tax bases may be assigned to the central government for stabilization and redistribution reasons. The sub-national governments may raise revenues    through user charges, benefit taxes, and taxes on relatively less mobile taxes (Musgrave, 1985; Rao, 1997). However, sub-national governments in Canada, Scandinavian countries, and the United States are allowed to levy personal income tax concurrently at both the central and sub-national levels. Some countries adopt the principle of separation in assigning tax powers by constitution. The taxes assigned to the central government are not assigned to the states and vice versa.

It is evident that most important direct taxes are levied concurrently on both the central and sub-national levels in federations. However, the design varies widely. In Canada, both federal and provincial governments can levy all direct taxes. In India, the central government has power to levy taxes only on non-agricultural income and wealth. The power to tax agricultural income and wealth is assigned to the states. In Switzerland, the greater taxing powers are with the Cantons i.e. the revenue of the Cantons is nearly 80 per cent of the total tax revenue of the country.

In most federal system of government, taxes on international trade (custom duties) are levied at the central level. Taxes on the consumption of goods and services are levied at both the central and sub-national levels. In Canada, the federal government levies value added tax and provinces levy retail sales taxes. Brazil levies VAT at both the central and state levels. In India, the central government levies excise duties on manufactured products while the states levy taxes on the sale and purchase of goods. The manufacturing stage VAT is levied by the central government and destination-based VAT up to the retail stage is levied by the states.

The CA Committee on Natural Resources, Economic Rights and Revenue Allocation has clearly assigned the revenue sharing mechanism between three layers of government in federal Nepal. The major sources of revenue custom duty, value added tax (VAT), corporate income tax, and personal income tax which comprise around 80 per cent of total tax revenue are assigned to be collected by the central government. Excise duty has been proposed to be collected concurrently by the central and sub-national government. This shows that around 90 per cent of total tax revenue will be under the central government.

The sub-national governments have been assigned to collect transport tax, land revenue, property tax and business tax. The service charges, royalty from natural resources and penalties are proposed to be collected concurrently among all three levels of government. The entertainment tax, land and building registration charges are assigned to be collected concurrently by sub-national and local governments.

The two main sources of government tax revenue, i. e., custom duties (export and import duties) by nature have to be collected by the federal government. In Nepal, custom duties contributed 23.5 per cent of total tax revenue in 2006/07 which will have to be collected by the central government. Therefore, VAT and income taxes will have to be collected concurrently on both the central and sub-national levels.  Other taxes (excise duties, sales tax, entertainment tax, hotel tax etc.) will have to be collected by the sub-national governments which will support the expenditure responsibilities of the sub-national governments adequately.

Existing expenditure and revenue structure of local government:

Local governments in Nepal have a weak revenue base relative to their expenditure responsibilities.

Table 5 shows that the expenditure of local level at VDCs and DDCs is very small in comparison to total government expenditure. The expenditures of local level is only around 5 per cent of total government expenditure ranging from 3.5 per cent in central development region to 12.4 per cent in far-western development region. The table also reveals that the expenditure made by VDCs is far below than DDCs. The analysis of decentralization efforts in Nepal shows that the overall level of fiscal situation at local level has been inadequate to support the development objectives of the rural people.

Table 6: Local level revenue by development region, 2005/06 (% of total revenue)
Development region	VDC	DDC	Total
Eastern development Region	0.3	1.0	1.3
Central development region	0.5	0.3	0.8
Western development region	0.8	0.5	1.3
Mid-western development region	3.2	2.7	5.9
Far-western development region	7.8	4.2	12.0
Total	0.6	0.5	1.1
Source: Fiscal situation analysis of local levels, Local Level Fiscal Commission, GoN

Table 6 explains that the revenue generated by the local levels is not sufficient to meet their expenditure responsibilities. The local level revenue is only about 1 per cent of total government revenue ranging from 0.8 per cent in central development region to 12 per cent in far-western development region.  

IV. Fiscal arrangement for the poorest of the poor in federal Nepal:

Although traditionally, redistribution is considered to be a central responsibility, experience has shown that sub-national governments are expected to, and in fact do play an important role in designing and implanting poverty alleviation strategy. Governments that are closer to the people be able to provide services more effectively and efficiently than a centralized authority (Rao, 2002).

Poverty alleviation is essentially a function that should be executed concurrently by all three levels of governments-national, state and local. In most of the federations, the central government sets national policy while local governments design and implement poverty alleviation programmes (Boadway and Shah, 2009).

The effective implementation of poverty alleviation policies depends upon the responsiveness and capacity of local government. However, local governments in most federations have a weak revenue base relative to their expenditure responsibilities. Therefore, the local governments highly depend on transfers. In Switzerland the communes raise about one third of total taxes raised in the country. In many federations like Brazil, India, South Africa municipalities, i.e., the third tier of the government has various rights and responsibilities defined by the constitution. Currently, the government of Nepal has given various rights and responsibilities to the local levels which will have to continue in federal form of government to minimize the dependency on fiscal transfer.

Nepal’s tax structure has been highly dominated by indirect taxation over last three decades. The major part of the revenue of the government has been collected by the poor people. Therefore, the model of tax collection will have to be oriented towards pro-poor in federal Nepal. Agricultural development has significant short term potential for poverty reduction in the rural economy where the majority of Nepal's poor live. However, government expenditure on agriculture sector has not been encouraging over the past few years leading to lack of progress in poverty reduction. The government expenditure towards social sector like health and education has to be increased. There has been significant price increase for basic needs like foodstuffs, cloth, health care and education which has direct negative impact on the poor. Overall, the government will have to launch a special package for the Madheshi Dalits to alleviate their poverty.

Since the NGOs/INGOs and donor community work for marginal, oppressed and vulnerable people and are committed to poverty alleviation of these groups in Nepal, they will have to allocate more fund for the Madheshi Dalits. 

V. Conclusions:

Madheshi Dalits who constitute 5 per cent of Nepal's total population are the poorest of the poor among ethnic groups in Nepal. They have fallen into the vicious circle of poverty largely due to illiteracy, low income and employment, socio-economic and political discrimination, little land etc. Their participation in all the bodies of governance: main political parties, cabinet, parliament, legislature, judiciary, civil service has been negligible. The literacy rate of Musahar was just 7.28 compared to national average of 53.73 in 2001 census (CBS, 2003).

To address the poverty problem of Madheshi Dalits, the fiscal arrangements in federal Nepal will need to be corrected through more equitable distribution of public expenditures. The expenditure responsibilities demarked by the CA Committee on Natural Resources, Economic Rights and Revenue Allocation will have to be clearly stated in the new constitution to obtain optimal institutional framework for the benefits of economies of scale.

The revenue sharing mechanism proposed by the CA Committee on Natural Resources, Economic Rights and Revenue Allocation will also need to be corrected. The two main sources of government tax revenue, i. e. custom duties (export and import duties) by nature have to be collected by the federal government. In Nepal, custom duties contributed 23.5 per cent of total tax revenue in 2006/07 which will have to be collected by the central government. Therefore, VAT and income taxes will have to be collected concurrently on both the central and sub-national levels. Other taxes (excise duties, sales tax, entertainment tax, hotel tax etc.) will have to be collected by the sub-national governments which will support the expenditure responsibilities of the sub-national governments adequately. The government of Nepal has given various rights and responsibilities to the local levels which will have to continue in federal form of government to minimize the dependency on fiscal transfer.

Currently per capita capital expenditure in all Terai districts has been far below than the national average. Therefore, more expenditure will have to be allocated to this region for poverty alleviation programmes in federal Nepal. The government will have to launch a special package for the Madheshi Dalits to alleviate their poverty. The government expenditure towards agriculture development, social sector and subsidy to the poor section of the society will have to be increased. Since the NGOs/INGOs and donor community work for marginal, oppressed and vulnerable people and are committed to poverty alleviation of these groups in Nepal, they will have to allocate more fund for the Madheshi Dalits.      

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