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Put fight against Covid at the heart of budget: economists
ZAHID HUSSAIN, Former WB lead economist
Rapid coronavirus vaccination, upgrading the creaking health system and expanding social protection should be the focus of the upcoming budget to bring the crisis under control, economists said. Vaccination should be the number one priority, said Zahid Hussain, a former lead economist of the World Bank s Dhaka office. We have to get rid of the coronavirus at any cost. Otherwise, there will be wave after wave of infections and the entire fiscal year will be spent in managing the crisis, said Ahsan H Mansur, executive director of the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh, a think-tank.
Keeping in mind the possible impacts of the second Covid-19 wave, the government is going to attach top priority to vaccination, economic recovery, and life and livelihood of the poor in the upcoming national budget.
The size of the next budget, due to be placed in parliament on June 3, is likely to be Tk 602,880 crore, 6.14 percent higher than the original budget of Tk 568,000 crore for the current fiscal year, according to a draft budget proposal.
It will be finalised today at a meeting between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal and top officials of the Finance Division, said finance ministry officials.
Informal Sector Workers: Hardly cared for in hard times
Inadequate govt support, job loss leave them ravaged amid pandemic; no official data on those affected by the crisis
Holding a paperboard over her head to shield herself from the scorching sun, Fulmoti, 75, waits for handouts at Khilkhet level crossing in the capital yesterday. Widowed after the Liberation War, the mother of two used to work at a local restaurant as a cooking assistant. She lost informal sector job last year after the eatery was shut amid the pandemic. She now depends on others’ donations to survive. Photo: Sk Enamul Haq
News Desk, bdnews24.com
Published: 28 Apr 2021 08:08 AM BdST
Updated: 28 Apr 2021 08:08 AM BdST
Two anti-tobacco groups have demanded increasing prices of cigarettes and other tobacco products by imposing specific taxes in the national budget. );
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Research and advocacy organisation Knowledge for Progress or PROGGA and Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance or ATMA raised the demand in a virtual press conference on Tuesday.
They placed a set of proposals and said implementing these in the upcoming budget for 2021-22 fiscal year amid the outbreak of COVID-19, a respiratory disease, will
prevent premature deaths of nearly 390,000 adults and 400,000 younger people.
Supplementary duty, health development surcharge and VAT on cigarettes will also earn the government Tk 34 billion in additional revenues, the organisations claim.