Home ›› 12 May 2022 ›› Front
The government has decided to expand the social safety net programmes more by increasing the allocation by 5 per cent in the national budget for the upcoming 2022-23 financial year.
In terms of money, the allocation will be raised by Tk 5,386 crore from last year’s allocation for these programmes, which help create jobs and provide financial support to the poor, low-income people and vulnerable groups.
For FY2022-23, the government plans to set aside Tk 1,13,000 crore for social protection, which will be 16.70 per cent of the next budget and 2.60 per cent of the GDP, according to Finance Ministry sources.
The amount was Tk 1,07,614 crore in the outgoing FY2021-22, which was 17.83% of the last budget and 3.11% of GDP. That was increased from the previous year’s Tk 95,574 crore allocation to help the millions of jobless, low-income people and vulnerable groups fight back against the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is set to present a Tk 6,77,864 crore budget for FY2022-23 in parliament on June 9. It will be his fourth budget as the finance minister and the 51st fiscal plan of the country. The outgoing fiscal’s budget was Tk 6,03,681 crore.
Ministry sources said that the budget’s base year for calculation of GDP has been changed from 2005-06 to 2015-16. That’s why the social safety net expenditure ratio to Gross Domestic Product compared to the outgoing fiscal is falling a bit, but the allocation is going up in terms of money.
However, this still has a downside.
“Yes, the allocation will rise [in terms of money]. It could go up by 5 per cent. The number of beneficiaries under the social safety net will increase but the amount of per capita allowance will not,” said Finance Division Additional Secretary Shirajun Noor Chowdhury.
The breakdown
There are essentially six sub-sectors under the social safety net programmes.
It will be proposed to allocate Tk 19,000 crore for various food security programmes in the next fiscal — going up by Tk 570 crore from last year’s Tk 18,430 crore.
The budget will also propose to allocate Tk 33,500 crore for social welfare and special community assistance programmes, including people with disabilities and disadvantaged groups, going up by Tk 740 crore from the outgoing fiscal’s Tk 32,760 crore.
A Tk 7,000 crore allocation for human resource development programmes, including various stipend programmes, will be proposed in the next budget — going up by Tk 1,079 crore from last year’s Tk 5,921 crore.
The budget will propose to allocate Tk 19,700 crore for employment generation and various development programmes, which is Tk 857 crore more than the last budget’s Tk 18,843 crore.
It will be also proposed that Tk 27,800 crore is allocated in the next fiscal’s budget for allowance programmes, including old age allowance and freedom fighter honorariums, going up by Tk 1,110 crore from last fiscal’s Tk 26,690 crore.
Also, credit support programmes will be proposed to be given an allocation of Tk 6,000 crore — which is Tk 1,030 crore more than last fiscal’s Tk 4,970 crore.
The worries
Because of the pandemic, the government this fiscal year had introduced several incentive initiatives, including rice distribution and cash assistance, as part of the social protection programmes.
Economists, however, say that the social safety net expenditures are full of deceptions, including mismatched total allocation numbers and the authorities’ failure to give the beneficiaries what they are supposed to get and to even identify the real beneficiaries.
The social safety net programmes in the upcoming budget are not seeing many changes as they have been taken in line with the conventional structure, they opined.
Experts have also said that social safety allocation should be higher in the next budget as the number of poor increased significantly amid the pandemic over the past two years.
The number of poor people now accounts for one-third of Bangladesh’s population, instead of one-fourth before the pandemic.
The poor are also facing tougher times due to the spiralling prices of essential commodities as the monthly inflation rate has gone up over the past few months.
According to Finance Ministry sources, all these allocations may be finalised at the next meeting of the cabinet committee on social safety net programmes.
