The government intends to set aside Tk 5,000 crore for FY2022-23 to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal made the projection while proposing a Tk 6,78,064 crore budget for the next fiscal year in parliament, which is Tk 74,383 crore more than the last budget.
The fund would be treated as a ‘block allocation’, similar to the special allocation of Tk 10,000 crore kept in the outgoing FY21 budget to tackle the pandemic.
Like in the outgoing fiscal year, the Tk 5,000 crore special Covid allocation is expected to be used to mainly procure Covid vaccines.
Although the infection of coronavirus has reduced drastically, the fear of its reappearance still persists as the outbreak of Covid-19 is still evident in many countries, the finance minister said in his speech.
He added, “So, bearing in mind the Covid-19 related health hazards, we are also proposing a block allocation of Tk 5,000 crore for the coming fiscal year.”
The minister said that the government is laying emphasis on how to combat such a complex pandemic situation as we experienced during Covid-19.
To this end, the government is planning to develop the capacity to respond and control such pandemic quickly, conduct research in this sector and develop the institutional capacity, technical knowledge and skilled manpower to up-scale the overall capacity.
In the last two fiscal years, sufficient funds have been allocated to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to implement the important activities to combat Covid-19 and for the development of the health sector.
“To meet any emergency expenditure, we earmarked Tk. 10,000 crore as block allocation,” he said.
Kamal went on to say that some of the projects taken in the last fiscal year to combat Covid-19 will continue in the next fiscal year.
