Special Correspondent :
The government has fixed spending priorities in six key sectors in the next national budget (2018-19) with a view to attaining a higher economic growth.
Officials related to budget formulation said, human resource development and education would get the highest priority in the next budget in terms of allocation followed by power and energy, physical infrastructure, agriculture, rural development and employment generation.
“The budget will focus in these very areas along with some new areas of the government interest like digital economy, export market diversification, capacity building to counter climate change impact and increase remittance earnings,” a senior Finance Ministry official told The New Nation asking not to be named.
He said the next budget would propose additional spending to these sectors for driving economy to a higher growth trajectory.
“All the key budgetary outlines have already been finalized without bringing any major reforms in both expenditures and revenue collection,” he added. When asked, the official said the new national budget would remain almost the same as of the current one excepting some ups and downs in the figures of income and expenditure.
Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith had earlier said that human resources development and education get priority in the national budget for the fiscal 2018-19 as a catalyst of achieving higher growth trajectory.
He said focus would also be given to the sectors like infrastructure, power and energy, and transport.
Muhith will present the Budget 2018-19, Awami League Government’s last full-fledged budget ahead of the 2019 national elections, in the parliament on June 7.
According to Finance Ministry sources, the allocation to be proposed in the next budget for human resource development and education would account for over 18 percent of the total budget. The allocation amounts to Tk 87,248 crore.
An outlay of Tk 82,160 crore has been provided to this sector in current fiscal’s budget (2017-18).
The next budget is expected to propose Tk 51,668 crore allocation for developing power- energy and psychical infrastructure. Of the total amount, Tk 24,920 crore will get power and energy sector alone. The allocation would be 5.3 percent of the total budget for next fiscal.
The current fiscal’s budget (2017-18) allocated Tk 46,994 crore for the heads of power and energy and psychical infrastructure. As per the draft allocation, the next budget would propose Tk 16,124 crore outlay for agriculture and rural sector development and the amount would be 3.4 percent of the total budget. An allocation of Tk 15,489 crore has been provided to these sectors in this year’s budget.
The size of the upcoming fiscal budget, as hinted by Finance Minister AMA Muhith, is likely to be around Tk 4,68,200 crore against the size of the current fiscal’s budget of Tk 4,00,266 crore.
