Evaluate the return from subsidies
The government's subsidy expenditure has increased by a mammoth 29.36 percent this fiscal year to Tk 46,385 crore, with allocation for exporters going up by a staggering 70.63 percent year-on-year to Tk 6,825 crore. While we understand that certain core sectors like the export sector need subsidies in order to be competitive—particularly those that are trying to break into the global market and can help diversify our lopsided export basket—the economic rationale for providing such subsidies must be justified. And for that there must be proper evaluation to check whether government subsidies are being used to optimise the benefits.
Proper assessment needs to be carried out to find out what exactly it is that we are getting in return. And the government should make it clear whether it has already done the necessary evaluation and, if not, when and how exactly it plans to do so. It is also important for the government to reveal for how long it plans to continue with its subsidy programme, whether subsidies would be provided non-stop or episodically, and what its long-term vision is.
In this context, we welcome the government's decision to provide subsidies to the expatriate workers but hold the opinion that in order to encourage migrant workers to use the official channel to send in remittance, the government should consider increasing the existing subsidy level from two percent to at least five percent to encourage migrants to desist from resorting to hundi.
However, we are disappointed that the agricultural sector has been ignored in this regard. This sector needs government support as much as, if not more than, the other sectors. The government should do a lot more for the farmers who have suffered substantially during the last boro season and had incurred huge losses. We hope this would be taken into consideration and the farmers would be adequately subsidised.
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