Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on Friday said the proposed budget of 2020-21 FY is not just a ‘traditional’ one as some economists have described it, but rather one for ‘saving lives and livelihoods’.
The minister came up with the remark at a post-budget briefing through a webinar in which Planning Minister MA Mannan and Agriculture Minister Dr Abdur Razzaque also took part.
Mustafa Kamal sood by his revenue collection target in the proposed budget, and called upon rich people to come forward to save the country’s people.
“We expect that the coronavirus won’t be prolonged in the country and we can collect revenue as per our expectation. At first we have to save people as the country’s people have been affected by coronavirus. Now we have to build infrastructure and create more jobs as many lost their jobs due to impact of COVID-19,” the minister also said.
He placed the proposed budget of Tk 568,000 crore in Parliament on Thursday. The revenue collection target has been set at Tk 378,000 crore. Of the amount, NBR has been tasked with realising a revenue collection target of Tk330,000 crore, The non-NBR revenue collection target is Tk15,000 crore, while the non-tax revenue collection goal is Tk33,000 crore.
The finance minister said, “We gave priority to agriculture sector after health sector in the budget. We want to make the agriculture sector in a new way.”“Mainly, we need huge money to feed the nation and create jobs.
Mustafa Kamal said, ‘‘We have been able to achieve our target in previous years. So we hope we can obtain GPD growth this year too. We announced 49th budget traditionally. But this year budget is different due to COVID-19. Besides, I had to face various problems before announcement of proposed budget not getting proper data.”
source: UNB
