Asif Showkat Kallol: The government is going to set an allocation of Tk 6,70,000 crore for the next national budget of the country, an increase of over 11 percent from the current year’s budget.
The decision to determine the budget outlay will be made at a virtual meeting to be presided over by senior finance secretary Abdur Rouf Talukder.
The budgetary technical team meeting will be held mainly between the planning and finance ministries to work out the outlays of the budget.
An official of the finance division said technically that meeting will literally fix the allocation of the total outlay of the budget for all the ministries and divisions before the budget proposal goes to the Budget Resources Committee. It is then the Budget Resources Committee will hold a meeting for the approval of those allocations. This meeting is supposed to be held on April 17 and Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is likely to preside over the meeting.
Besides, a fiscal coordination council meeting will also be held the same day.
The allocations for various ministries and divisions have also been estimated at a number of tripartite meetings between different ministries and divisions at the finance division in the last one-and-a-half months, an official of the finance division said.
Those meetings were meant for determining the allocations for the ministries, divisions, annual development programmes and social safety net. Those meetings also discussed availability of foreign resources and funds for taming the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Covid-19 pandemic control expenditure has now exceeded Tk 2,80,000 crore.
Another official of the finance division said next fiscal year’s GDP growth is likely to be set at 7.5 percent which is not rationalised as the country has small bases for economic activities and amid the Ukraine war and other uncertainties.
The Finance Division also informed the planning ministry for the Annual Development Programme outlay to be at Tk 2,60,000 crore to Tk 2,65,000 crore but the final figure could be known after the Budget Resources Committee meets.
Next fiscal year’s ADP will be set at the National Economic Council meeting in May and the planning commission is now working on it.
According to the budget proposal, for the next 2022-23 financial year, the Finance Division has prepared a plan to spend Tk 6,73,432.80 crore. Therefore, the outlay of the budget for the next financial year is increasing by about Tk 70,000 crore as compared to the original budget of the current financial year. And, it is about Tk 80,000 crore more than the revised budget allocation.
The major earning will come from revenue collection. The government hopes that the pace of revenue collection will keep persisting well into the next financial year. The target of the total revenue collection has been increased. For the first time, the country’s revenue collection target is being set at more than Tk 4,00,000 crore. However, in order to control the budget deficit, the government will strictly control unnecessary and lavish public expenditures in the next financial year.
The allocation of Tk 603,681 crore in the main budget of the current financial year is 17.5 percent of the GDP of the current financial year. And, the allocation that has been planned in the budget of the next financial year is 15.5 percent of the potential GDP of the new financial year. As a result, the budget allocation is not increasing in proportion to the size of the GDP, officials said.
On the other hand, the upward trend in the prices of fuel oil, fertilisers and gas in the world market will increase the government’s expenditure on subsidies in the next financial year.
Expenditure on social security and salaries and allowances will increase. Most of the Tk 90,000 crore that is being allocated in excess of the revised budget will go to these sectors. As a result, it remains to be seen how much development expenditure can be made from the additional allocations.
According to a report, the implementation of ADP during July-February of the current financial year has increased as compared to the same period of the previous year. During this time, both project aid and government funding have increased. Unless there is a new outbreak of coronavirus, the rate of ADP implementation this year will be higher than what was in the last two fiscal years.
Because of ensuing national elections, the social safety net outlay will increase by 15 percent as against the current allocation of Tk 1,07,614 crore.
