The New Nation - Internet Edition

UNB, Dhaka

Finance Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam yesterday assured of budgetary support to private initiatives for setting up of cold storage and development of export market for agriculture products.

Though the government machinery is busy determining the extent of agriculture subsidy, the Finance Adviser finds it difficult to fix the target and said the subsidy should be determined in more thoughtful manner as it is now going as an income support.

He said he would also consider increasing endowment fund for agriculture research and extending tax holiday facility for the poultry sector from the perspective of overall tax exemption measures.

Aziz was addressing a pre-budget meeting titled 'Agriculture Budget, Farmers' Budget' organised by Channel-i at the NEC conference room.

Channel-i director Shykh Siraj handed over a set of recommendations based on the information and farmers' demands he picked up from the grassroots-level discussions in five districts since April 18 to accommodate those in the new budget.

He would also submit the recommendations along with the views and concerns expressed at today's meeting to the Chief Adviser today.

Agriculture and Water Resources Adviser Dr CS Karim, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser on Fisheries and Livestock Manik Lal Samaddar, agriculture researchers, academics, economists, senior journalists and representatives from farmers, fisheries and livestock sectors took part in the discussion.

Responding to the demands and needs, the advisers acknowledged the concerns raised by the speakers at the meeting in view of the recent food situation and threat to agriculture sector due to climate change.

Dr CS Karim assured to accommodate the recommendations as much as possible, but urged the people to lower their expectations considering the capacity of the national exchequer. He also stressed the need for developing public-private partnership in facing the challenges.

The Finance Adviser also assured that the agriculture, including fisheries and livestock, and agriculture-related sectors like water resources management would get top priority in the budget like the previous budget.

He, however, reminded that Agriculture is important but not the only sector and he would try to manage the budget considering the intra-and-inter-sector conflict of interests.

He would not also change the budget priority of power, transportation (road and railway) and human resources development (health and education) sectors in the budget for the next fiscal year.