JS goes into budget session today

The Jatiya Sangsad (JS) will go into its budget session for the fiscal year 2022-23 today. The National Budget for FY2022-23 is slated to be placed in Parliament on June 9. The parliament secretariat commission approved a Taka 341.89 crore budget for parliament to spend on its development and non-development activities for the next fiscal year of 2022-23.

The budget for the next fiscal year is 1.72 percent higher than the main budget of the current fiscal year, which was Taka 336.14 crore. The commission also revised the budget for the outgoing fiscal to Taka 316.01 crore. Country’s leading economists say controlling inflationary pressure is now the main challenge of the economy. Controlling the inflation should be the main policy in the next budget alongside keeping the inflationary pressure within the tolerance level of common people. Also,  expenditures in the social safety nets should be increased.

The government should

 pay more attention to revenue 

budget instead of development budget

The government has already taken a move to reduce tax and VAT on import of essential items alongside discouraging import of luxurious items to control inflation. In this regard, the central bank should continue its efforts to keep the market of foreign currency stable.

Considering the present circumstances, the government should pay more attention to revenue budget instead of development budget as expenditure in the import-based projects should be checked. The government should not undertake any fresh import-based project which will help minimising pressure on the foreign currency reserves.

Apart from these, upcoming national budget for 2022-23 must focus on economic recovery from uncertainties due to Covid-19 impact and Russia-Ukraine war. Therefore, the government will have to try to bring dynamism in the economy.

After the Covid-19 pandemic when the economy was trying to recover from the shock, the Russia-Ukraine war started which created huge uncertainties globally. Every country in the world has to face the challenges and they are under pressure. 

Therefore, we think that strengthening the social safety-net programme must get a special focus in the upcoming budget.