Final consultation on to frame budget for FY’16

The government opened Tuesday the final consultation for framing the new national budget which is likely to be 16 per cent bigger than the current one.
The principle: higher budget outlay, higher spending and higher economic growth forms the basis of budgeting exercise by the finance authorities.   
Under the joint auspices of the finance division and the planning commission, meetings on budget finalisation for the next fiscal year (FY) (2015-16) were held with the ministries concerned yesterday (Tuesday).
The tripartite meetings involving finance division, planning commission and the divisions concerned will continue until March 19, before the final stitches begin.
 "A total of 57 meetings will take place to finalise the allocations for the ministries and the divisions," said one official involved with the budget preparation.
The meetings are being held at the planning commission. Senior secretary of the finance division Mahbub Ahmed will preside over most of the meetings. In absence of the senior secretary, an additional secretary will head the meetings.
The meetings held Tuesday were, however, presided over by an additional secretary of the finance division.
To begin with, Tuesday's first consultation was held with the office of the Comptroller and Auditor General of Bangladesh.
The other meetings on the day were with the Public Service Commission Secretariat, and the Ministry of Labour and Employment.
Today (Wednesday) the framers of the budget will sit with planning division, energy and mineral resources, and information and communications technology (ICT) officials.    
A total of 57 divisions and commissions had earlier placed their annual-budget estimates with the finance division and the planning commission.
Based on the preliminaries, the current round of meetings will be finalising ministry-wise allocations and their incomes, either national board of revenue (NBR) tax revenues, non-NBR tax revenues, and non-tax revenues.
The government in its three-year budgetary plans, effective up to 2017-18, wants to enlarge the budget size by 16 per cent.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith in a press briefing recently said the government wants to increase the budget outlay as it thinks 'higher allocations will lead to higher growth'.
The previous Awami League government had announced a Tk 1.13-trillion budget in the 2009-10 fiscal year.
In the current fiscal year, the budget size is Tk 2.5 trillion--nearly double the 2009-2010 one.
However, the allocations will be summarised within March for the next budget.
On the other hand, the NBR will meet with the leading chamber bodies and trade associations to gather their proposals mainly on the tariff structures.
The Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry usually places scores of suggestions on tariffs each year in the process of cobbling up budget.
    jasimharoon@yahoo.com