September 11: After two weeks of budget holiday in Koshi Province, the government led by newly appointed Chief Minister Hikmat Karki has issued Economic Ordinance 2080 and Appropriation Ordinance 2080 to remove this situation.

With the issuance of the ordinances, the provincial government will now be able to spend and collect taxes. For the past few weeks, the government had been unable to spend and collect taxes in the current fiscal year due to constitutional hurdle.

The Council of Ministers of the Koshi provincial government decided to present the two ordinances to the province chief Parshuram Khapung on Friday night. On Sunday, both the ordinances were issued by provincial chief Khapung.

The ordinances brought earlier by the Koshi provincial government for the fiscal year 2023/24 was not passed by the State Assembly and became automatically null and void. Both the ordinances issued on June 14  became null and void on August 27.

The provincial budget was frozen since August 27 after the Supreme Court scrapped the Uddhav Thapa-led government and ordered it not to make any long-term decisions. The new ordinances were issued again after the Hikmat Karki-led government was formed recently.

CPN-UML filed a writ in the Supreme Court questioning the legality of the vote of confidence taken by Thapa. On August 24, a single bench of Justice Ishwar Prasad Khatiwada issued an order in the name of the province government not to make any long-term decisions.