Realistic and cautionary

The proposed budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year has been realistic and cautionary, as the government increased the budget by only 4.6 percent from the outgoing fiscal year, said Atiur Rahman, former governor of Bangladesh Bank.

"The social sectors have not been exempted to the level intended from the overall budget cuts. Allocations for social security programmes could have been more generous to adjust for inflation," he said during a press briefing on the budget at Unnayan Shamannay's office yesterday.

Atiur, also its chairperson, said the ongoing economic challenges will not make it easy to reduce inflation to 6.5 percent from nearly 10 percent. "If the inflation rate can be reduced to the targeted level, it will relieve people from its pressure," he said.

He suggested that the government should allocate special funds in the budget for cash transfers to those affected by the recent cyclone.

More innovative strategies in the health budget, alongside an increase in its allocation, could have reduced the burden of health expenditure on people during this period of uncontrolled inflation, he said.

He also urged the government to increase the allocation for the agriculture sector, as it increased to only 3.59 percent from the existing 3.5 percent.

Atiur also suggested prioritising adding new taxpayers rather than burdening those already paying taxes. For this, the entire revenue collection structure needs to be overhauled, including the capacity of the revenue board and digitisation, he said.

Meanwhile, he remarked that the proposal of a 15 percent tax on black money against the 30 percent tax on the highest income through legitimate means is unacceptable.

Finally, at the end of the day, the proposed budget is realistic and timely, he observed.

However, since many cuts have to be made, implementing this tight budget will require more skill and dedication than ever before, he added.