Budget 2014-2015 In Extending Social Protection

Social protection contains 5.6% of total budget

This year's budget document shows safety net and welfare schemes got Tk 139.74 billion allocation, up by over 23 percent than the preceding budget. The proposed outlay is 5.6 percent of the total budget of Tk 2505.06 billion.

Special allocation for women development programmes

The Finance Minister has proposed Tk 1 billion special allocation to implement most of the women development related programmes within the medium term budget framework. During the budget speech he made a pledge that the Government will also take initiative to make all our development plans and policies gender responsive. Following the previous year, they would prepare gender responsive budgets for 40 ministries.
Donations to girls' schools and colleges, and vocational and technical education institutions through banking channels will receive a full tax exemption under the new tax provisions. The total allocation for women in the national budget is around Tk 50 billion more than last year's. A National Work Plan has been developed for the implementation of Women Development Policy 2011, which outlines the activities of ministries, government agencies, NGOs and private and international organisations. Forty percent of female undergraduate students will continue to get stipends same as last year.

People with disabilities get special focus

The government gave special attention to the people with disabilities in national budget 2014-15 and allocated Tk 200 million to the trust established for the physically challenged persons.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith expressing his commitments: “We will institutionalize the facilities for disabled people. To this end, the National Foundation for the Disabled will be converted into a Directorate immediately. The rate and coverage of stipends for insolvent disabled and disabled students will be enhanced. A decision has been taken to increase the number of disabled beneficiaries to Tk 400,000 and that of disabled students to 50,000 in FY 2014-15.”
He proposed to allocate Tk 200 million to the trust established for the disabled with neuro-developmental disorder and Tk 50 million to the trust for the welfare of the physically challenged.
Over the last five years, the government implemented a number of safety net programmes, namely, stipend program, special stipend programme for physically challenged students, allowances for insolvent disabled persons, old age allowances, allowances for expecting and lactating mothers, allowances for widows and divorced women, one house one farm project, Ashrayan project, food for works program, test relief, gratuitous relief, food assistance for destitute mothers, char livelihood project etc.
In view of the responsibility of both the society and the state for physically challenged people, this budget proposes to increase tax exempted income threshold for them from Tk 0.3 million to Tk 0.35 million.

Tax relaxing for women, senior citizen and physically challenged

Under this newly proposed budget, women will get yet another exemption of Tk 25,000 in the income tax bracket for fiscal 2014-15, making their total tax-free allowance Tk 0.275 million. The same exemption applies to senior citizens over 65. In the last budget (2013-14), the income tax threshold for women was Tk 0.25 million, up from Tk 0.225 million in the previous year. Physically challenged people would enjoy tax relief on first Tk 0.35 million of income.

Special concerns towards children welfare

There is an allocation of budget Tk 500 million for children welfare. Preparations will be made to implement a draft child budget on pilot basis in the 2015-16 fiscal year, bringing hope for having a full-fledged children sensitive resource allocation in future.

Ensuring healthcare for all

To encourage women to go to hospitals for healthcare, the budget continues an ongoing commitment from last year of turning 30 hospitals into women friendly hospitals by 2016. By changing the managements, 10 district hospitals and three upazila health complexes have already been turned into such facilities. However, this initiative still falls short of ensuring that there are enough female healthcare givers for women patients. Women make up only around 25 percent of medical officers, and 35 percent of staff in healthcare facilities.

Honourarium raised for freedom fighters 
In this budget monthly honourarium for freedom fighters have been raised to Tk 5,000 from Tk 3,000. The government is also taking initiatives to ensure housing facilities for the landless and insolvent freedom fighters throughout the country.

New programmes for the marginalised group
Some new programmes have also been included in the SSNPs, such as, construction of houses for accommodating the cleaning staff of Dhaka city corporations. A special allocation of Tk 500 million has been proposed in the budget to build similar houses in the divisional and district towns.