National budget for the fiscal year at is final stage

M.A. Qader-Asian Tribune Correspondent in Bangladesh

Dhaka, 21 May (Asiantribune.com): Bangladesh finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith on Wednesday said budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year is at the final stages.

"The budget drafting is expected completed within this month. Subsequent it will be sent to the press [for printing]," he said at his office yesterday.

The budget session will start on June 4 and it will be presented at the parliament on June 11, he said.

In the current 2008-09 fiscal year, around 20 lakh of poor elderly people are being given Tk 250 as a monthly allowance and one lakh poor freedom fighters are receiving Tk 900 monthly allowance.

All the allowances under social security programme, including the ones for the elderly, freedom fighters and widows, and the number of beneficiaries will increase in the upcoming budget which is in the final stages, the finance minister said.

"We are committed to increase all the allowances under the social security scheme. It was our election pledge," Muhith said after an inter-ministerial meeting on old age allowance at the Secretariat.

But the final decision on the increment and how many the number will be is yet to be taken, he said.

"The amount for the elderly can be increased to Tk 300 and the number of beneficiaries can be increased to 22 lakhs," said a finance ministry official told bdnews24.com, preferring anonymity as he was not supposed to speak to the media.

"The allowance for the freedom fighters will be increased to Tk 1,500 keeping the number of beneficiaries unchanged," he said.

Besides, nine lakh widows, destitute women and women abandoned by their husbands are receiving Tk 250 monthly allowance.

Sixty-thousand women are receiving Tk 300 a month under poor maternity allowance scheme in the current budget.

This year the government is expected to announce over one hundred thousand crore Taka budget, highest ever in the history of Bangladesh.

-Asian Tribune-