Socio-economic development and timely budget to deal with global epidemics

Hossain Mintu:

The proposed budget is extremely bold and timely in this difficult time of global epidemic. Monwara Hakim Ali, President of Chittagong Women’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry addressed the Parliament on 03 June 2021. He was responding to the announcement of the country’s 50th proposed budget by Mustafa Kemal. The budget announced by the present government gave a glimmer of hope to the people of the country at a time when the people of all walks of life were suffering economically due to the two-step epidemic. The Hon’ble Prime Minister of the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina and the Minister of Finance A.H.M. have agreed to formulate such a timely budget amidst various limitations. He congratulated Mustafa Kamal.

There was a need to increase the allocation in the health sector to deal with the epidemic, but in the districts outside Dhaka, Narayanganj, Gazipur and Chittagong, there are units of infant and neonatal, women and maternal health, oncology, welding and preventive medicine. The proposal of tax exemption for up to 10 years will play a special role in restructuring the country’s health sector at the grassroots level. Increasing allocations to the education sector will revive the epidemic-ridden education sector. Agriculture – Rural development and increasing allocations to the agricultural sector will reduce the food security risk of the country in these difficult times of the epidemic. In addition, increasing allocations to the social security sector, communications and infrastructure development will improve the quality of life of the general population and reduce uncertainty in people’s lives. If 1 lakh 55 thousand 747 crore taka can be utilized properly in the human resource development sector, it will create employment and skill development for the unemployed people of the country. The budget proposal to reduce the prices of rice, pulses, sugar, salt, cow’s milk, hand sanitizers, jute and weaving products, bottled water, etc. will go a step further in ensuring the daily necessities of the common man. The increase in the price of bidi-cigarettes will encourage the common people of the country to refrain from smoking. Rising prices of plastic products will put some pressure on the general public. In particular, a deficit of Tk 2 lakh 24 thousand crore in the proposed budget will threaten the implementation of the budget.

Proper implementation of various proposals in the budget to ensure socio-economic development and health care for women will play a vital role in the advancement of women in the country and will revive the most affected women entrepreneurs in the epidemic. Increasing the annual turnover of women entrepreneurs from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 60 lakh, ensuring access to credit for women entrepreneurs in the CMSME sector – a positive aspect of the budget. The proposal to bring poor women under micro-insurance will help empower women at the grassroots level. It also proposes to strengthen women’s political, economic and social empowerment, eliminate gender inequality, and establish children’s rights and increase women’s human capacity, economic participation and benefits, increase women’s infrastructure and communication services, and strengthen institutional capacity to ensure women’s voices and representation. Will play a special role in socio-economic development. The proposed allocation of Tk 4,191 crore for the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs will play a helpful role in the implementation of the proposed issues for women. The initiative to make low educated poor and helpless women self-reliant through income generating training and IT training is certainly commendable. We hope that the establishment of Community Nursing Degree College for women in Dhaka, the implementation of the project to develop women entrepreneurs in economic empowerment at the grassroots level will lead to the development of backward women. However, beauty parlor business is a big sector for women entrepreneurs. Where entrepreneurs, employees and service recipients are almost all women. Backward Indigenous women are also directly involved in this business. As a result of the increase in the price of services in this sector, women entrepreneurs affected by the epidemic will be threatened again.

In the budget, I am proposing to take separate projects for the purpose of improving the living standards of the indigenous and small ethnic communities and their ongoing participation and expansion in small scale industries. As a result, it will play a helpful role in maintaining their socio-economic development as well as culture and heritage.