No surprises in upcoming budget
The upcoming national budget is unlikely to spring any surprises, finance ministry officials said.
Rather, it will be more of the same, but some small schemes will be incorporated to boost prospective sectors and the neglected sections of the society, they added.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith has already conveyed the ideas to the finance division, which is now busy setting up the programmes.
For instance, Bangladesh Bank has prepared a Tk 200 crore refinance scheme for livestock. The interest rate for the loans will be 10 percent -- banks will take 5 percent interest from clients and the rest 5 percent from the government as subsidy.
The government will set aside some Tk 10-20 crore for spending on the subsidy, the officials said.
Besides, a Tk 50 crore allocation is likely to be put in for the country's poor children.
The finance division has been preparing the scheme on the basis of what criteria and through which ministries the fund will be spent. A monitoring mechanism will be put in place to oversee how the fund is being spent.
The land boundary agreement with India will give Bangladesh ownership of around 111 enclaves, where the population is about 15,000.
Those enclaves have not seen any development activities like construction of roads and schools for a while now.
Subsequently, around Tk 50 crore may be allocated for the development of the enclaves, the officials said.
Besides, small allocations may be made for the backward sections of the society like the char dwellers, tea garden workers and tribal communities.
In the last six years, the government took on a number of big projects in areas of power, infrastructure and city connectivity.
And in the next budget, the government will give emphasis on speedy progress of these projects and make necessary allocations as per the demands of the ministries concerned.
Besides, salaries and allowances of the government staff, interest payments and subsidies will eat into a big chunk of the budget.
As a result, there is little scope for big new innovations in spending.
The government will present a budget of more than Tk 300,000 crore for fiscal 2015-16, two-thirds of which will be spent on non-development sectors.
Comments