JS passes Tk 6,78,064cr budget for FY23

The Jatiya Sangsad on Thursday passed the Tk 6,78,064 crore national budget for FY23 which eyes to tame inflation amid facing six key challenges alongside the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic and other adverse global situations.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal moved the Appropriations Bill, 2022 which was passed by voice vote.

Leader of the House and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was present throughout the day's proceedings. Earlier on Wednesday, Parliament passed the Finance Bill 2022 with some changes.

Following the proposal mooted 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.

Earlier, Parliament rejected by voice vote a total of only 664 cut-motions that stood in the name of opposition members on 59 demands for grants for different ministries.

A total of thirteen lawmakers from Jatiya Party, BNP, Gono Forum and Independent submitted their cut-motions on the budget.

They are Kazi Firoze Rashid, Rustam Ali Farazi, Mujibul Huq, Fakhrul Imam, Pir Fazlur Rahman, Shamim Haider Patwari, Begum Rawshan Ara Mannan, Ponir Uddin Ahmed, Harun Ur Rashid, Mosharrof Hossain, Mokabbir Khan, Rumeen Farhana and Rezaul Karim Bablu.

They were, however, allowed to participate in the discussion on Election Commission Secretariat, Public Security Division, Health Services Division and Secondary and Higher Education Division.

Later, Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury applied guillotine to quicken the process of passing the demands for grants for different ministries.

Opposition and independent MPs were present in the House when the Appropriation Bill was passed in Parliament and they did not raise any voice against passing of the bill.

Earlier on June 9, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal placed a Tk 6,78,064 crore proposed budget for FY23 at Jatiya Sangsad considering recovery from the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and also keeping ahead six key challenges with containing inflation as the major one.

"Certainly, we shall be able to transform Bangladesh into a hunger and poverty-free society by achieving SDG in 2030, a higher-middle income country by 2031, a knowledge-based, happy and prosperous developed country by 2041 and a secured delta by 2100," said Kamal while placing his 208-page budget speech for FY23 lasting over two hours.

Considering the lagged effects of Covid-19 and the protracted crisis arising from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Kamal set up a GDP growth target of 7.5 per cent in the next fiscal year while containing inflation at 5.6 per cent.

The title of the budget for the next fiscal year is "Return to the Path of Development; Leaving the Covid-19 Behind".

Out of the total budget size of Tk 6,78,064 crore, the total revenue earnings for FY23 have been estimated at Tk 4,33,000 crore. Of this, NBR will collect Tk 3,70,000 crore and another Tk 63,000 crore will be collected from other sources.

The total size of the expenditure budget has been estimated at Tk 6,78,064 crore, which is 15.2 per cent of GDP. For the operating and other expenditures an allocation of Tk 4,31,998 crore, while for Annual Development Programme an allocation of Tk 2,46,066 crore has been made.

The overall budget deficit for the budget will be Tk 2,45,064 crore which is 5.5 per cent of GDP. In the last budget, the deficit was 6.2 per cent of GDP. The deficit will be financed from domestic and external sources.

In the budget, the allocation for the social infrastructure is Tk 1,83,425 crore which is 27.05 per cent of the total allocation; out of this, allocation for the human resources sector (education, health and other related sectors) is Tk 1,67,524 crore.

For the physical infrastructure sector an allocation of Tk 2,00,860 crore has been made which is 29.62 per cent of the total allocation.

Out of this Tk 86,798 crore will go to overall agriculture and rural development sub-sector, Tk 79,026 crore will go to the communication infrastructure sub-sector, and Tk 26,065 crore allocation has been earmarked for power and energy sub-sector.

An allocation of Tk 1,53,208 crore has been earmarked for general services sector which is 22.59 per cent of the total allocation. For public-private partnership (PPP), financial assistance to different industries, subsidies, equity investments in state-owned, commercial and financial institutions, a total of Tk 53,155 crore has been made which is 7.84 per cent of the total allocation. 

Besides, an allocation of Tk 80,375 crore has been made for the payments of interest; which is 11.85 per cent of the total allocation. For net lending and other expenses, Tk 7,041 crore has been allocated which is 1.04 per cent of the total allocation.