This is a government that gets its mandate from people power and has been varying out a revolutionary transformation in the state structure. That is why the forthcoming budget should also be revolutionary. Firstly, all government decisions and actions should be transparent, this is a value system that comes from democracy.

Second, the traditional priorities in the budget must be done away with. Priorities are set by learning from past mistakes and by scientific evaluation. The new budget can't keep giving priorities to areas that have never benefited from the priority. For instance, the priority on agriculture has made little difference to production. The time has come to prioritise non-farm sectors for investment and employment creation as well as attract joint ventures into agriculture.

Third, there has to be a big leap forward in revenue policy. Nepal has notoriously low revenue collection and the reason for that is tax evasion and that, in turn, is caused by the high tax rate. The current revenue policy punishes those who produce more. This actually undermines poverty reduction by dampening wealth creation. A more progressive tax structure would help correct this., Elsewhere in the world a flat tax rate of 10-15 percent has been successful in reducing the tax evasion and higher revenue collection. This policy could be combined with a high \'after-death tax' which taxes property and assets that are transferred to those who inherit them. We must break the tradition that those who inherit property get it for free. In addition, revenue collection must be decentralised.

Fourth, government spending must be decentralized to the village and district level. The argument that local bodies can't handle such decisions smacks of a colonial mentality. At a time when state structure is moving towards a federalist and inclusive democracy, we must decentralize and do it now.