Revised budget down 2.5pc
The finance ministry has already finalised the revised budget for this fiscal year and the concerned ministries are informed about it but it will not be made public until June.
But as per section 12 of the Public Money and Budget Management Act 2009, the finance ministry is supposed to place the revised budget before the parliament by March and only after approval would the concerned ministries learn of their new allocations.
The government has not been following this for 13 years now: the revised budget is placed along with the new budget in June and the supplementary budget is passed within a few days.
As in previous years, the finance division informed the revised allocation to the respective ministries in the last week of March, The Daily Star has learnt from officials involved with the proceedings.
When the revised budget was first placed in the parliament as per the law, former lawmaker Suranjit Sengupta opposed it saying it was unconstitutional.
Since then, the finance ministry refrained from placing the budget before the parliament.
A former high official of the finance ministry suggested either following the act properly or repealing the respective sections of the law.
Meanwhile, the revised budget fixed for this fiscal year is Tk 660,508 crore, down 2.5 percent from the original budget.
Though the government took various austerity measures, the operating budget has been increased by 0.21 percent to Tk 432,942 crore in the revised allocation.
But the development budget allocation has been reduced by 7.51 percent to Tk 227,566 crore.
The allocation for the annual development programme has shrunk by Tk 18,500 crore.
About Tk 21,000 crore allocation was increased for agriculture, power and food subsidy and Tk 9,638 crore for interest payment.
Due to the ongoing austerity measures policy, about Tk 6,470 crore has been reduced from the goods, service and resource procurement and public works.
About Tk 1,093 crore was reduced in the salary and allowance and Tk 7,585 crore was curtailed from the allocation for investment on shares and equity.
The government has kept the target of Tk 433,000 crore based on the receipts for the first nine months of the fiscal year, officials say.
The revenue target for the National Board of Revenue remains unchanged at Tk 370,000 crore. In the first eight months, the NBR could collect 53 percent of the target, up 2 percentage points year-on-year.
In the nine months, only 27 percent of the non-NBR revenue target of Tk 18,000 crore was collected. The collection trend was similar last year. Even after the low achievement, the collection target was retained.
The total non-tax revenue target was fixed at Tk 45,000 crore. About 54 percent was collected in the first nine months of the current fiscal. At this point last fiscal year, 51 percent of the total target was collected.