Finance minister AMA Muhith on Wednesday said the government would bring seven districts of the seven divisions under the zila (district) budget in the next financial year.
The districts will be brought under the district budget as part of the government policy to decentralise the annual budget, said Muhith at a meeting with the leaders of the International Business Forum of Bangladesh at the secretariat.
The finance minister, however, did not name the districts.
Tangail is the first district that was selected in the current financial year for implementation of the zila budget by the finance ministry. Under the new concept the allocation made for Tangail in the annual budget was shown separately.
A number of officials at the finance ministry, however, did not find anything new in the newly-introduced zila budget. They said showing separate allocation was not meaningful.
Muhith said the new concept had some problems and they were now examining how they could improve the implementation of the zila budget in the proposed districts.
Without decentralisation of budget and power to the grassroots level higher growth of the country is tough, he said.
The government is trying to involve the grassroots level in decision making processes, the finance minister said.
The IBFB leaders made a number of proposals including reduction of interest rate of bank borrowings and increasing bank borrowings by the government instead of selling saving certificates and bonds.
Muhith ruled out both the proposals outright saying saving certificates and bonds were major income generating sources of the government to meet up its budget deficit.
Sales of saving certificates will drop if the interest rate is lowered while high bank borrowing is not good for the private sector, he said.
-With New Age input
