Parliament passes Tk 603,681 crore national budget for FY 2021-22

Parliament today passed the Tk 603,681 crore national budget for the fiscal year 2021-22, with the theme "Bangladesh towards a resilient future protecting lives and livelihoods".

Today is the last day of the current 2020-21 fiscal.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal placed the Appropriations Bill, 2021 seeking a budgetary allocation of Tk 792,912.95 crore which was passed by voice vote.

Yesterday, Jatiya Sangsad passed the Finance Bill 2021 with some changes.

Following the proposal mooted in the House by the Finance Ministry for the parliamentary approval of appropriation of fund for meeting necessary development and non-development expenditures of the government, the ministers concerned placed justifications for the expenditures by their respective ministries through 59 demands for grant.

Earlier, the House rejected by voice vote a total of 625 cut-motions submitted by opposition members, on 59 demands for grants for different ministries.

A total of twelve MPs from BNP and Jatiya Party including Kazi Firoz Rashid, Rustam Ali Farazi, Mujibul Huque, Pir Fazlur Rahman, Shameem Haider Patwari, Rawshan Ara Mannan, Harunur Rashid, Mosharrof Hossain, Mokabbir Khan, and Rumeen Farhana submitted their cut-motions on the budget.

They, however, were allowed to participate in the discussion on law ministry, Secondary and Higher Education Division and Health Services Division.

Later, Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury applied guillotine to quicken the process of passing the demands for grants for different ministries without giving the lunch break.

Opposition and independent MPs were present at the House when the Appropriation Bill was passed in Parliament but they did not raise voice against passing of the bill.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on June 3 placed a Tk 603,681 crore-national budget for 2021-22 fiscal to get the economy going in spite of the crippling Covid-19 pandemic with a strong focus on vaccinating the population and shoring up their jobs.

A bold target has been set to achieve 7.2 percent GDP growth with a deficit totalling Tk 214,618 crore, which is 6.2 percent of GDP.

To meet the deficit, Tk 101,228 crore will come from external sources, while Tk 113,453 crore from domestic sources of which Tk 76,452 crore will come from the banking system and Tk 37,001 crore from savings certificates and other non-bank sources.