If we disregard the ritual value of these practices for the time being, will it be possible to stumble on any other contribution by all this rhetoric? Being an economist, and also a close follower of the so-called sagacious opinions of the experts on the budget, I am very skeptical.

But it has been very popular practice to invite the economists to different pre-and post-budget seminars. The current government is also following the footsteps of its predecessors. But this is the most auspicious time to do the unpopular, but realistic, thing.

Very little has been accomplished so far by the statements of the experts, excepting filling some space in the newspapers, and air time of the television stations. Not doing enough homework, and too much focus on grabbing the attention of the media through the use of mesmerizing words by the economists, may also be a reason.

The budget is a multifaceted document reflecting the multi-dimensional nature of social and economic development, and implying that economics as a discipline should be read in terms of several sub-fields. Nobody can be a real expert on more than one sub-field, let alone all the fields. But in our country, one becomes an expert in all aspects of budget.

What an economist says sometimes is guided by his/her training in the western schools. Economics as a subject is not free from value judgment, which evolves with the level of development. Needless to say that the economic concerns in a developed country, as defined by their values, are different from ours.

While developing countries are yet to solve the problems of human suffering from hunger and poverty, they are not an issue at all in developed countries. They are rather more concerned about the wellbeing of their pets, for example. Therefore, the economic issues, as shaped by their problems and values, may not be benefitting for a developing country like Bangladesh.

Sometimes the economists of our country, who are well-linked with the west, forget these differences. As a result, they wrongly prioritize what needs to be done in our budget. While our country badly needs infrastructural development more than anything else to create the possibility of sustained economic growth, every year some economists and experts scream more for other issues pertaining to western values, like gender-friendly budget, for example.

The importance of the issues pertaining to western values cannot be denied. But they are not more important than meeting the very basic human need, three meals a day for everyone. Who cries for a gender friendly budget? The urban upper class. Who is the victim of gender discrimination? Undoubtedly, it is the female member of poor families where every member cannot be adequately fed, so she becomes the residual recipient of food and other things.

Creation of the opportunity to generate enough income to have adequate food is the prime condition for a discrimination free society. We should not be influenced by what developed countries are doing today, but should examine what they did 100 years ago.

Weak democracies always rely on the implementation of the issues which are popular among the urban middle class, as they are always afraid of being overthrown. They provide "bread and circuses" to the political constituencies to win their support. This is very similar to the "rent-sharing" policies in ancient Rome during its expansion.

The current government, being non-political, has no need to "buy off" the urban population by focusing too much on their demands. Therefore, it is expected that they will take the unpopular but necessary steps.

The real stakeholders in the budget are the producers; unfortunately, they have never been adequately consulted. This is the time to do that. I would like to propose the following five things for consideration in the next budget:

• Instead of having a series of meetings with different groups of people mostly based in Dhaka, invite some farmers from remote villages. For example, invite 100 farmers randomly from different agricultural zones of the country, and listen to their problems.

  To make sure of their attendance, arrange their trip to, and stay in, the capital. Rather than involving researchers as middlemen to learn about farmers' views, let them be heard by the budget formulators directly. Please don't invite any member or chairman of the union council. Their socio-economic status and problems are not representative of the ordinary farmers of the country.

  Similarly, rather than talking only with the leaders of the different manufacturer's associations, invite some entrepreneurs from all kinds of industry, i.e., large, medium and small, and listen to them. Let them say what is the main hurdle for them, and ask them what can be done in the budget to eliminate that hurdle. Sometimes the experts give the textbook solution of a problem, but these real people will give the real solution of their own problem.

• The next thing I would like to propose is what will possibly be the most unpopular thing, even to mention. Given the fact that, in the last couple of years, the number of students passing the SSC and HSC examinations has significantly declined, there is no urgent need for any new capacity creation at undergraduate and graduate levels.

  Therefore, this year, any allocation for such capacity creation can be diverted to infrastructural development. More specifically, rather than giving any money to finance a new public college, or extension of the existing ones, allocate this money to the overhauling of the electricity stations.

• A substantial amount of the development budget goes to the construction of the rural roads, bridges and culverts through the local government. Most of the money is wasted, as it is used to keep the party cadres at the grass-root level happy. Let's take a bold and sacrificing stand this year; don't allocate any development funds for this sector.

  Instead, allocate half of this money to the generation of more electricity, and half to rural electrification. So there will be no new road, bridge or culvert built in the coming year. I hope our rural people will not mind making this sacrifice, which will benefit them as well as the whole country in the long run.

  If this experiment really results in some positive changes, then we can repeat it once every five years, the year of national elections, which is usually marked by use of huge amount of state funds to buy political support for the sitting government.

• The employees in the armed forces buy the essentials at a highly subsidized price. There has been no reform in this system so far. Any kind of subsidy contradicts the basic principle of free market economy, which has been promoted and used as an explanation to remove the subsidy on a number of agricultural inputs, and closing down of a number of state owned enterprises in the past.

  Rather than arbitrarily deciding the prices of these subsidized items for the armed forces, the government should link them with the market price. For example, the government may decide that employees of the armed forces have to pay a certain percentage of the market price, and there should be a gradual increase in that percentage over time. In this way the burden of any price increase, which has become a routine phenomenon these days, will not be passed on entirely to the government. This year is the right time to carry out this reform.

• One sensitive issue in our society is the funding of the educational institutions, both private and public. The government should include a clause in the coming budget, allowing these institutions to mobilize funds from alternative sources. Collecting donations from their alumni, or any other source, should not only be made legal but should also be encouraged.

To that end, the government can declare in the coming budget that every educational institution will receive a gift from the government to match the collected donations, and the donors will get tax credit for their donations.

There is no doubt that some of the things I mentioned above will be highly unpopular, but please do the unpopular things, at least for once, as the popular things have failed to bring any good to the country.

Md Abdul Basher is Faculty, Willamete University, USA.