Business Desk :
The daily order of business for this year’s budget session will be carried out with minimum lawmakers in parliament, in an attempt to maintain social distancing and avoid the risk of Covid-19 infection during the brief session.
“Maintaining all health guidelines, the budget session will continue for around two weeks,” Zafar Ahmed Khan, senior secretary of the parliament secretariat, told the journalists.
“Due to ongoing second wave of Covid-19, the budget session would be as short as possible to avoid the risk of infection. No other business except for budgetary and other important activities would be done during the upcoming budget session,” he added.
The 11th Jatiya Sangsad will go into budget session at 5:00pm on June 2 while Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal is scheduled to place the budget for the 2021-22 fiscal the following day.
This will be the 13th session of this parliament.
Usually, the budget session continues for 30 to 35 working days with discussions on the general budget stretching for 55 to 60 hours.
The last budget session of the current 11th parliament was prorogued after only nine working days due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which was the shortest budget session in the recent history of Bangladesh Jatiya Sangsad.
Only MPs and staffs and officials of the parliament secretariat who test negative for Covid-19 will be allowed to attend the session, sources at the parliament secretariat said.
The question-answer session for ministers and the prime minister in the budget session will be tabled, Zafar Ahmed Khan said.
Parliament has taken various health safety measures during the budget session. Apart from the budget related officials and employees of the parliament secretariat, others will be discouraged to come to the parliament, sources said.
Senior members of parliament will be advised not to take part in the session considering their age.
The parliament will be run every day with 80-90 lawmakers, so that they can sit maintaining distance in compliance with the health guidelines, sources said.
As per the rules of parliament procedure, the presence of 60 out of 350 members of parliament is mandatory for ensuring a quorum to start the sitting of a parliamentary session.
Presence of respective ministers and MPs would be ensured in the session on days when the session will have business related to them.
The constitution has an obligation to pass the budget before June 30. The rules of procedure also instruct the members of parliament to discuss the proposed budget.
Sources at the parliament secretariat said media will be requested to cover the budget session through live telecast of Sangsad Television instead of coming to parliament.
No pass will be issued to journalists to cover the budget session this time due to Covid-19 situation.
However, one reporter from each media outlet will be able to collect budgetary documents.
