Livelihood budget with big deficit

News Desk: This year's budget emphasizes the importance of people's livelihood. The size of the proposed budget is six lakh 3 thousand 61 crore taka, which is 16.5 percent of the GDP. The deficit is two lakh 14 thousand 71 crore, which is 6.2 percent of GDP. In other words, the budget of the big deficit again. In the revised budget for the financial year 2020-21, the deficit is one lakh 6 thousand 451 crore taka, which is 6.1 percent of the GDP. Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Thursday presented the budget in Parliament titled 'Bangladesh on the path to a strong future with priority over livelihood' in the wake of the coronavirus epidemic.

This is the 50th budget in the history of Bangladesh. This is the third consecutive budget of the government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The highest expenditure has been incurred in public administration. 17.8 percent of the total management and development budget including subsidies, incentives, pensions has been allocated to this sector. The amount of allocation is one lakh 75 thousand 423 crore taka. Although proportionally it is slightly lower than the current financial year. In the main budget of the current financial year, 19.9 percent of the total budget was allocated to public administration. The education and technology sectors are in the second position in allocating funds in the proposed budget. 15.7 percent of the total budget has been allocated for this sector. The amount of allocation is 65 thousand 72 crore rupees. Allocation in this sector has increased proportionally compared to the original budget of the current financial year. In the main budget of the current financial year, 15.1 percent of the total allocation is given to the education and technology sector. The lion's share of the government's additional spending plan in the budget will be on coping with the effects of the coronavirus epidemic.

As part of this, it has been proposed to allocate Tk 10,000 crore in the next financial year to address the crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Again, the government has increased the coverage of the social security zone because of the coronavirus. A total of Tk 1,07,614 crore has been allocated for the social security sector in the proposed budget, which is 16.73 per cent of the total budget and 3.11 per cent of GDP. In the revised budget for the current fiscal year 2020-21, the allocation for this sector was Tk 95,584 crore. It has been proposed in this budget to bring more people under the tax. In this context, the Finance Minister said, although a large part of our population is able to pay taxes, the number of taxpayers is currently only 25 lakh 43 thousand.

As a result, necessary measures will be taken in this budget to take necessary steps to prevent tax evasion and bring them under the tax net. In addition, our revenue-to-GDP ratio is lower than that of other equities. As a result, measures will be taken to increase the revenue to GDP ratio at its current logical level.