The New Nation - Internet Edition

Pulack Ghatack

The Government is going to announce the biggest-ever national budget for 2008-09 fiscal year today with a reduced Annual Development Programme (ADP) and increased revenue expenditure.

The ADP will come down by 3.39 per cent than the original ADP of the current fiscal year while the revenue expenditure will go up by about 40 per cent in the new budget.

Heavy subsidy in different sectors and a wide safety-net for poverty stricken people will take big chunk of the development expenditure. The budget will not be visionary, as coping with the ongoing economic crisis will be its main feature, economic analysts observed.

However, Finance Adviser Dr Mirza AB Azizul Islam has said it time and again that poverty reduction and employment generation would be the goal of his fiscal plan.

The total outlay of the budget would be Tk 99,962 crore of which Tk 43,362 crore or 43.38 per cent will account for government's revenue expenditure while deficit for oil and food will eat up around Tk 16000 or 16 per cent.

Tk 25600 crore has already been endorsed as development expenditure which also includes some of the Government's welfare measures like allowances for poor and old-age people, sources in the Finance Ministry said.

The size of the current year's budget is Tk 87137 crore, including the Tk 7523 crore liabilities of state-run Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation.

The new budget will be palliative for the public servants as the Finance Adviser is set to announce 41 per cent salary increase for them in the budget speech.

In absence of parliament, the budget speech will be delivered over national radio and television at 3pm today. The speech, summary of the budget, and books on annual financial statements would be available on internet.

Dr Aziz in his speech is likely to optimism of achieving 6.5 per cent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) with implementation of the new budget against an expected 6.2 per cent at the end of the current fiscal year on June 30.

Economists, on the contrary, have ruled out the possibility of higher growth, as the already announced development program of the Government is small. Economists, in the backdrop of a murky political scenario, also foresee poor implementation of the small ADP.

Analysing the budgetary information available so far, Executive Director of the Centre for Policy Dialogue Dr Mostafizur Rahman told The New Nation that the country needed acceleration of GDP growth to reduce poverty.

He said, "more development schemes and proper implementation of the programmes are necessary to this end. But I fear that the small ADP will also not be implemented properly. This will create a negative impact on GDP growth."

The economist, however, welcomed the safety-net measures of the government which would help people to sustain in the economic misery.

Dr Aziz also hopes to pull down the soaring inflation below double digit in the coming year.

The new budget will more than double subsidies for fertiliser, food and oil to ease pressure on households. The fiscal deficit will be about 5 per cent of the GDP the bulk share of which will be covered by bank borrowing.

Officials said the budget will have a domestic borrowing target of Tk 16900 crore to meet oil import needs.

The Government also has an ambitious revenue earning target, which would be Tk 54500 crore, up from the current fiscal year's Tk 45900 crore.

To make the budget more participatory, all information and important documents of the budget could be read and downloaded by any person or institution at home and abroad from the website, www.mof.gov.bd, a Government handout said.

Opinions and recommendations on the budget could be given by filling a feedback form on the website by 5 pm on June 16, 2008. Besides, written opinions and recommendations on the budget can be sent directly or by post.

To ensure wider participation, the link of Finance Division website will also be available on the following government websites - www.bangladesh.gov.bd, www.nbr-bd.org, www.plancomm.gov.bd, www.imed.gov.bd, www.bdpressinform.org and www.cao.gov.bd.