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Published on June 30, 2020
Parliament on Tuesday passed the Tk568,000 crore national budget for the fiscal year 2020-21, with the slogan 'Economic Transition and Pathway to Progress'.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal moved the Appropriations Bill, 2020 seeking a budgetary allocation of Tk7,59,642.44 crore which was passed by voice vote, reports UNB.
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, parliament rejected by voice vote a total of only 421 cut-motions that stood in the name of opposition members on 59 demands for grants for different ministries.
A total of nine lawmakers from Jatiyo Party and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) submitted their cut-motions on the budget. They are Kazi Firoze Rashid, Mujibul Huq, Fakhrul Imam, Pir Fazlur Rahman, Shamim Haider Patwari, Liaquat Hossain Khoka, Begum Rawshan Ara Mannan, Harun Ur Rashid, and Rumeen Farhana.
They were, however, allowed to participate in the discussion on Law Ministry and Health Ministry.
Later, Speaker Dr 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 the parliament, and they did not raise any voice against the passing of the bill.
Ins and outs of budget FY21
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on June 11 placed a Tk568,000 crore budget to attain an ambitious 8.2% GDP, which has been revised to 5.2% in line with maintaining a 5.4% inflation for the next fiscal year overcoming all the challenges and impacts of the Covid-19 global pandemic.
The total allocation for operating and other expenditures is estimated at Tk3,62,855 crore, while the allocation for the annual development programme (ADP) is Tk2,05,145 crore.
The total budget size in the current fiscal year was earlier estimated at Tk5,23,190 crore. In the revised budget, the expenditure was reduced by Tk21,613 crore, and thus revised at Tk5,01,577 crore.
Keeping in mind the realities and planned reforms in revenue management, the government set the target of total revenue income in the fiscal year 2020-21 at Tk3,78,000 crore.
Of this, Tk3,30,000 crore will be collected through the NBR. Tax revenue from non-NBR sources has been estimated at Tk15,000 crore, while the non-tax revenue at Tk33,000 crore.
The overall budget deficit has been estimated at Tk190,000 crore, which is 6% of the GDP, up from 5% in the last fiscal year.
Out of the total deficit, Tk80,017 crore will be financed from external sources, while Tk1,09,983 crore from domestic sources of which Tk84,983 crore will come from the banking system, and Tk25,000 crore from savings certificates and other non-bank sources.
Allocation for the social infrastructure sector in the proposed budget is Tk1,55,536 crore, which is 27.38% of total allocation, in which allocation for human resource sector (education, health and other related sectors) will be Tk1,40,222 crore.
Besides, the allocation proposed for the physical infrastructure sector will be Tk1,67,011 crore or 29.4%, in which Tk69,553 crore will go to overall agricultural and rural development, Tk61,435 crore to overall communications, and Tk26,758 crore to power and energy.
A total of Tk1,40,265 crore has been proposed for general services, which is 24.69% of the total allocation.
An amount of Tk36,610 crore has been allotted for public-private partnership (PPP), financial assistance to different industries, subsidies and equity investments in nationalized corporations, banks, and financial institutions, which is 6.45% of the total allocation.
As per the ministry and division-wise allocation, the Local Government Division received a proposed budgetary allocation of Tk36,103 crore, followed by Tk22,883 crore to the Health Services Division alongside Tk6,362 crore to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Tk29,442 crore to the Road Transport and Highways Division, Tk24,853 crore to the Power Division, Tk15,442 crore to the Ministry of Agriculture, Tk33,118 crore to the Secondary and Higher Education Division, Tk24,937 crore to the Ministry of Primary and Mass Education, and Tk34,842 crore to the Ministry of Defence.
To fulfil emergency requirements, a Tk10,000 crore lump sum amount has been allotted to fight Covid-19.
The government has allocated Tk95,574 crore for the social safety net programs, which is 16.83% of the total budget and 3.01% of GDP in FY2020-21. In last year’s revised budget, the allocation was Tk81,865 crore.
Earlier on Monday, Parliament passed the Finance Bill 2020 with some changes.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
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