About Tk 60,000 cr to be cut in budget

Staff Correspondent : Due to various reasons, the government is in financial crisis. Due to this, it is not possible to implement the budget to the desired extent. In this reality, the budget for the fiscal year 2023-2024 is being cut to a large extent. This amount can be Tk 60 thousand crores.
Of this, the Annual Development Program (ADP) component will be reduced by Tk 18,000 crore and the non-ADP component will be reduced by Tk 32,000 crore. This information is known from sources of finance department.
According to sources, the revenue is not being collected as per the target in the current financial year. In six months, the revenue deficit exceeded Tk 23,000 crore. At the same time, foreign aid is also decreasing. Due to these reasons, the implementation of the budget is also decreasing.
The budget includes allocation of funds for public-private projects (PPP), bank recapitalization. So, no need to spend more money in this sector. At the same time, as a result of the austerity policy adopted by the government, about Tk 20 thousand crore will be saved by the end of the year.
As a result, even if the budget is cut, the size of the budget will decrease by 7 percent to 7.5 percent compared to the original budget in the current financial year. The issue of budget revision will be finalized in the resource committee meeting related to budget implementation in March next month.
According to sources, the size of Annual Development Program (ADP) has been fixed at Tk 2 lakh 63 thousand crore in the current budget. This target is now being reduced to Tk 2 lakh 45 thousand crores.
In the revised budget, the inflation rate has been increased to 0.5 percent and the finance ministry has estimated it at 6.5 percent. But economic analysts believe that it will not be possible to maintain it at the end of the year.
Ultimately, they say, it will remain above seven percent. The gross domestic product (GDP) growth target was set at 7.5 percent in the budget for the fiscal year 2023-2024. Now this GDP growth is proposed to be reduced by about one percent to 6.75 percent. Not only has GDP growth been reduced, but the size of the main budget has also been proposed to be cut.
In the current financial year, the main budget was Tk 7 lakh 61 thousand 785 crore. But due to lack of implementation capacity, it has now been proposed to reduce it to Tk 7 lakh 2 thousand.
On the other hand, the budget for the financial year 2024-2025 starting from next June has been initially estimated at Tk 8 lakh 5 thousand crore. Which is 13.38 percent more than the fixed budget of the current financial year and 5.6 percent more than the revised budget.
It may be noted that the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has faced a huge shortfall in revenue collection in the first six months (July-December) of the current financial year. In the first 6 months of the financial year 2023-2024, there is a revenue deficit of Tk 23,227.19 crore compared to the target.
Out of this, the deficit is Tk 6,782.21 crore in the month of December. However, the revenue at the end of six months has increased by 13.89 percent compared to the previous financial year. Although almost 88 percent of the target was achieved, the government agency could not avoid a major deficit.
It is known that in six months, against the target of Tk 1 lakh 88 thousand 756 crore, the revenue of the government has been collected Tk 1 lakh 65 thousand 629 crore 75 lakh.