At a pre-budget exchange of views with Finance Minister M Saifur Rahman at his secretariat office, they also put forward suggestions that the government should pay heed to the World Bank, IMF and some other multilateral agencies only proportionate to the development assistance.

They also said the next budget should try to attain further reliance on domestic resources to reduce dependence on others.

The editors also felt that the budget should make focused attempt to reduce poverty, increase employment and generate productivity in agriculture and industries.

The meeting was attended, among others, by Khabor Patra editor Gias Kamal Chowdhury, News Today editor Reazuddin Ahmed, Naya Diganta editor Alamgir Mohiudin, Financial Express editor Moazzem Hossain, Amar Desh editor Amanullah Kabir, Inqilab editor AMM Bahauddin, Ajker Kagoj editor Kazi Shahed, BSS Managing Director and Chief Editor Gaziul Hasan Khan and UNB editor Golam Tahabur.

Finance Secretary Zakir Ahmed Khan and NBR Chairman and Internal Resources Secretary Khairuzzaman Chowdhury were also present at the meeting.

The main thrust of the next budget should be on full and proper utilisation of the budget allocations and curbing corruption, they said pointing out that in the health, education and rural development sectors about 50 percent allocations are usually misused.

They said with the effective utilisation of the budgetary allocations, the government will be able to do more work with less resource.

The finance minister said he was very committed to consulting the editors as the leaders of the fourth estate. He said newspapers speak of the hopes and aspirations of the people, they voice the demands of the people.

He said in a democratic society, such consultations offer the ingredients of decision making process and the suggestions that the editors put forward will be very useful in finalising the budget.

Saifur said poverty reduction and employment generation will remain the core of his budgetary exercise.

"We want to combat corruption and reduce misuse and newspapers can play the most significant role in this fight," he observed.

He said the development of human resources remains the main objective of the present government and the current budget has an allocation of Tk 2,000 crore for this sector and this will be further increased in the next budget.