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Dhaka     Friday   29 March 2024

New budget aims at building ‘Smart Bangladesh’

News Desk || risingbd.com

Published: 11:44, 29 May 2023  
New budget aims at building ‘Smart Bangladesh’

The government has finalized the size of next budget for fiscal year 2023-24. The size of the proposed budget is likely to be around Tk 761,785 crore. Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal will present the budget at the budget session of the national parliament at 3 pm on Thursday (June 1).

The slogan of the next fiscal year’s (2023-24) budget has been fixed as “Across the long journey of development, towards Smart Bangladesh”.

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal will present the way for the dream and implementation of ‘Smart Bangladesh-2041’ in his budget speech. He will highlight various challenges, according to Finance Ministry sources.

Sources said that in the budget speech, the finance minister will highlight the outline of ‘Smart Bangladesh-2041’. This is the outline of the future Bangladesh after Digital Bangladesh. There will be four main strategies - Smart Citizen, Smart Economy, Smart Government and Smart Society. Apart from this, there will be talk of smart education, smart healthcare, smart agriculture, smart trade and smart transportation system.

Sources said the vision of this year’s budget is ‘Smart Bangladesh-2041’. A separate chapter is being kept on it in the book of the Finance Minister’s budget speech with emphasis on it. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ‘Smart Bangladesh-2041’ vision to establish Bangladesh as a knowledge-based economy and an innovative nation.

Sources said that there are about 40 mega projects in the “Smart Bangladesh Master Plan”. Three timelines of 2025, 2031 and 2041 have been fixed for the implementation of these projects.

Sources said the government is going to give a budget of about Tk 761,000 crore for the next fiscal year 2023-24) to contain inflation and meet outstanding subsidy. Of this, Tk 500,000 crore will be met through revenue collection. Loans and grants will be accepted from various local and foreign sources to meet the remaining deficit of Tk 260,000 crore.

Sources said that the government is setting a total expenditure target of Tk 759,955 crore in the next fiscal year. This is 15.20 per cent of the estimated gross domestic product (GDP) for the next fiscal year. The GDP size is estimated at Tk 50 lakh 6 thousand 672 crore with a growth of 7.50 per cent. For the current fiscal year 2022-23, a budget of Tk 6 lakh 78 thousand 64 crores is given. Accordingly, compared to the current year, the size of the next budget is increasing by Tk 81,891 crore.

The government wants to earn a total of Tk 5,00,000 crore from NBR, non-NBR and non-tax revenues in the next fiscal year. In the current fiscal year, it was Tk 433,000 crore.  Accordingly, the revenue target in the next budget is increasing by about 15 per cent. Of this, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is targeting Tk 430,000 crore. In the current budget which was Tk 370,000 crore. That is, the NBR revenue target is being increased by 16.20 per cent. Apart from this, the government expects Tk 20,000 crore through non-NBR tax and Tk 50,000 crore from non-tax revenue sector. In the current budget, targets of Tk 18,000 crore and Tk 45,000 crore have been given in these two sectors respectively.

KMA Hasnat/AI