Even finance officials sceptical about financing big budget

As a big new budget worth Tk 9.38 trillion comes within days now, finance officials themselves appear sceptical whether the government can finance it with limited sources of earning as of now.
Officials say the government is setting a target of collecting Tk 6.95 trillion as revenue in the fiscal year 2026-27, up from current year's target of Tk 5.4 trillion, to finance the large budget.
In the recent past, the government's total revenue collection in FY 2024-25 was Tk 4.09 trillion, and in FY 2023-24, the receipt was Tk 3.66 trillion.
For the upcoming new fiscal year, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) alone is going to be given a target to collect Tk 6.04 trillion, some Tk 2.43-trillion higher than its previous records in revenue mobilisation.
In FY 2024-25, the NBR's actual revenue collection was Tk 3.61 trillion while in FY 2023-24 the collection was Tk 2.19 trillion.
Officials say the budget has become bigger as the new political government has tried to accommodate its major election pledges, with huge financial involvement, at a time.
They say the finance division officials had proposed to the finance minister to incorporate the election pledge-related programmes in phases to avoid huge financial pressures at a time. However, the political government wanted to implement election pledges in a bigger number in the coming budget, raising the need for huge money.
The officials say the government has already started the piloting of Family Card programme which is an election pledge of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). In the next fiscal year, the number of beneficiaries under the programme will be 4.1 million, requiring an amount of Tk 127 billion.
"The government could expand the programme in phases instead of incorporating such a big number of beneficiaries in a year," says a senior finance official.
He says that, until now, there is no step to lessen the number of beneficiaries under the existing social-safety-net programmes, which means the requirement of Tk 127 billion is being added afresh to the budget.
Also, he adds, the government has already launched pre-piloting of "Farmer card". Some 20,000 farmers will get Tk 2,500 each under this programme in the first phase, which will also create additional pressure on the public exchequer.
According to budget officials, the government in next budget is keeping some Tk 1.36 trillion for education sector, up from current fiscal's Tk 978 billion. The additional allocation is given to meet the need for implementing election pledges.
In health sector, the government is allocating Tk 693 billion in the next fiscal year, up from Tk 347 billion in current fiscal year, to implement the election pledges, they say.
A senior official at the Economic Relations Division says this year the government is taking budget support worth $800 million from development partners in advance or future pipeline citing the financial need due to higher subsidy spending caused by conflicts in the Middle East.
The official is skeptical as to how much money from the development partners will be available in the next fiscal year to support the budget.
Dr Zahid Hussain, a former lead economist at the World Bank's Dhaka office, quips the government will need an 'Aladin'scherag (lamp)' to finance such a big budget in the next fiscal year.
"Two targets (of the coming budget) you can safely say are beyond any boundary to achieve," he told The Financial Express on Friday.
One is the revenue target given to the NBR, which, whatever transformative programme is taken, is beyond achievement and the other one is foreign financing target.
"The revenue target would not be achieved and you are going to fall well short," he predicts.
Dr Hussain raises question over the necessity of taking a big annual development programme when foreign financing has slowed down and revenue earning is not promising.

syful-islam@outlook.com