The Jatiya Sangsad passed an around Tk 6.04 trillion (Tk 603,681 crore) national budget, the biggest in the country's history, on Wednesday for the 2021-22 financial year, aiming to strengthen the growth of the economy.
The budget has been focused on special priority to health, agriculture, social safety nets, employments, food and disaster management and food security apart from addressing the Covid-19 related issues.
The approved budget is Tk 35,681 crore higher than the original budget size of the FY2020-21 fiscal year, which was Tk 5,68,000 crore.
The GDP size for the next fiscal has been set at Tk 34,56,040 crore.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal placed the Appropriations Bill, 2021 seeking a budgetary allocation of Tk 792,912.95 crore which was passed by voice vote.
On Monday, the parliament passed the Finance Bill 2021 with some changes.
Following the proposal proposed in the House by the Finance Ministry for the parliamentary approval of appropriation of fund for meeting necessary development and non-development expenditures of the government, the ministers concerned placed justifications for the expenditures by their respective ministries through 59 demands for grant.
They, however, were allowed to participate in the discussion on the law ministry, Secondary and Higher Education Division and Health Services Division.
Later, Speaker Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury applied guillotine to quicken the process of passing the demands for grants for different ministries without giving the lunch break.
Opposition and independent MPs were present at the House when the Appropriation Bill was passed in Parliament but they did not raise voice against passing of the bill.
Earlier, the Finance Minister presented the budget before the parliament on 3 June with a theme of - 'Priority on lives and livelihoods, tomorrow's Bangladesh'.
The budget has projected a 7.2 percent GDP growth and the budget deficit is Tk 214,618 crore, which is 6.2 percent of GDP.
To meet the deficit, Tk 101,228 crore will come from external sources, while Tk 113,453 crore from domestic sources of which Tk 76,452 crore will come from the banking system and Tk 37,001 crore from savings certificates and other non-bank sources.
The budget has been fixed an NBR revenue collection target at Tk 330,000 crore, the same target he set for the current FY.
The non-NBR revenue has been fixed at Tk 16,000 crore and non-tax revenue at Tk 43,000 crore for the current FY against Tk 14,999 crore and Tk 33,000 crore respectively for the previous FY.
The total revenue receipt target stands at Tk 389,000 crore against Tk 378,000 crore for the previous FY.
In the budget, a total allocation of Tk 3,78,357 crore has been made for other sectors including management and Tk 2,25,324 crore has been allocated for the annual development program (ADP).
However, revenue collection has been given importance in the budget of the Finance Minister.
He has imposed taxes on all kinds of luxuries, especially imported foreign goods. Tax Identification Number (TIN) has been made mandatory to approve the design of a house.
As a result, if you want to build a house anywhere in the city or village, you have to take TIN. The homeowner will come under the tax.
Apart from this, TIN has also been made mandatory for registration of any co-operative society.
Meanwhile, many people have lost their jobs due to the negative impact of Coronavirus, so the government has increased the scope of social security programmes in the budget and increased the number of allocations and beneficiaries.
The number of beneficiaries of old age allowance has been increased by 8 lakh. The monthly honorarium of the heroic freedom fighters has been increased from Tk 12,000 to Tk 20,000.