Arifur Rahman Rabbi
Smokers will have to spend more on cigarettes as finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal has proposed increasing prices of cigarettes in the proposed budget of 2021-22 fiscal year.
Mustafa Kamal on Thursday placed the national budget with an outlay of Tk 6,03,681 crore in parliament.
The minister said he proposed increasing cigarette prices to reduce the use of tobacco products and increase revenue,
Mustafa proposed to fix the price of lower slab of cigarette per 10 sticks at Tk 39 and above and a 57 per cent supplementary duty on it. Apart from this, he proposed fixing the price of medium slab cigarette per 10 sticks at Tk 63 and above, high slab 10 sticks cigarette at Tk 102 and above and the price of premium slab at Tk 135 and above and 65 per cent supplementary duty for all the three slabs.
He also proposed continuing the existing price of non-filtered 25-stick handmade bidi at Tk 18, 12-stick bidi at Tk 9 and 8-stick bidi at Tk 6 and 30 per cent supplementary duty for three categories.
He proposed continuing the existing price of filtered 20-stick bidi at Tk 19, 10-stick bidi at Tk 10 where supplementary duty will remain unchanged at 40 per cent for both.
The minister also proposed to continue the existing price of 10 grams zarda or chewing tobacco at Tk 40 and the price of 10 grams gul at Tk 20 where supplementary duty will be 55 per cent for both.
He proposed 45 per cent tax with 2.5 per cent surcharge for manufacturers of all sorts of tobacco products including cigarette, bidi, chewing tobacco, and gul.
