For the first time after independence, the budget size of the next fiscal year is going to be smaller than the previous year. The proposed budget size for the fiscal year 2021-27 has been estimated at Tk 1 lakh 5 thousand crore, which is less than Tk 1 billion than the original budget of the current fiscal year. The initiative was taken to keep the budget 'implementing', officials of the Department of Finance.
Tuesday (April 7) finance adviser. The decision was finalized at a meeting of the Coordination Council on the financial, currency and exchange rates chaired by Salehuddin Ahmed, sources in the finance ministry said.
Finance Department officials said the main reason for the budget is the lack of the desired progress in the revenue collection, the exclusion of the projects for unnecessary and political considerations from the annual development program (ADP) in foreign loans and grants.
The allocation of ADP in the fiscal year 2021-27 is being reduced to Tk 2 lakh 5 thousand crore, where the ADP of the current fiscal year was Tk 2 lakh 5 thousand crore.
Officials said most of the mega projects taken during the Awami League government have already been completed and the current interim government has decided not to take the new mega project.
Although the size of the budget is small, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is giving additional targets. In the next fiscal year, the target of revenue collection for NBR has been Tk 1 lakh 5 thousand crore, which is Tk 1 lakh crore more than Tk 1 lakh crore this year. However, it was reported that the NBR proposed to keep the target in Tk 1 lakh crore.
Finance Department sources said that due to deficit to meet the target in the current fiscal year, the NBR target has been reduced by about Tk 1,000 crore in the revised budget.
The budget for the fiscal year 2021-27 has been estimated at Tk 2 lakh 25 thousand crore. The finance department says the deficit limit has been set to reduce the pressure on internal loans, especially banks and savings. More than half of these are planned to collect from foreign sources and the rest from domestic sources.
In the new budget, GDP growth rate is estimated at 5.7 percent and inflation is 5.7 percent. The target of these two indexes in the current financial year was 5.7 percent and 5 percent respectively. However, in the revised budget, GDP growth has been reduced by 5.7 percent and inflation has increased by 5.7 percent.
Economists say that setting up realistic goals and pruning unnecessary expenditures is a challenge for the government, but transparent and efficient implementation will be the key to the success of this budget.
