FY26 budget to be realistic, welfare-oriented

Budget will be realistic and welfare-oriented, Finance Adviser Dr Salehuddin Ahmed said Monday in an indication of continuity of the interim government's tight-fisted monetary stance.

"We told them that we will try our best to implement the budget," he told newsmen after a pre-budget meeting with the senior secretaries and secretaries of the ministries which will get highest allocations in the next budget, held at Bangladesh Secretariat.

The adviser said he instructed the officials to work vigorously to fully utilise the budgetary allocations next year for the welfare of the people.

"Transparency and integrity has to be ensured in spending the budgetary allocations," Mr Ahmed said about the direction given to the top bureaucracy under the post-uprising government.

At the meeting the secretaries informed the finance adviser about the difficulties they face while implementing budget.

However, when asked, the finance adviser declined to divulge to the media what specifically transpired in the budget-preparatory conclave.

The finance adviser is expected to place the national budget of Bangladesh in the first week of June through a televised speech as parliament got dissolved following the August-5th 2024 uprising that toppled the Sheikh Hasina government.

The original size of the country's current budget for the financial year 2024-25 was Tk 7.97 trillion adopted by the past government with a huge deficit. The budget has now been downsized.

syful-islam@outlook.com