The government is planning to introduce eco tax from the next fiscal year in an attempt to curb pollution by the industrialists, finance minister AMA Muhith on Thursday said.
There have been proposals for imposing higher tax on the industries polluting the environment and giving incentives to green industries, he said after emerging from a pre-budget meeting with the parliamentary standing committee chairmen at the planning commission.
‘We are reviewing the proposals,’ he said, adding that it was a very good suggestion.
The rivers surrounding the capital and its suburbs face growing pollution for errant industrialists.
Muhith was holding third and last pre-budget parley with the standing committee chairmen in the run up to announcing the new national budget in the first week of next month.
They demanded for retention of budgetary allocation for each of the parliamentary members after the finance minister last week said they were planning to divert the fund to public representatives of the Upazilas, said officials attending the meeting.
Muhith dispelled their fear saying that the allocation will remain in the next budget.
He also dispelled their fear that there will no allocation for construction of new roads. He said there would be no allocation for construction of national highways. He said road density in Bangladesh was one of the highest in the region. There would be allocation for maintenance of the highways, he said.
Muhith disagreed with the chairmen’s view on monthly payment order for schools. He told them that they would not continue inclusion of new education institutions under the MPO from 2015-16.
He said fund would be kept for MPO in the next fiscal, but willing educational institutions would need to comply with new rules of the MPO.
Mihith said top priority would be given to human resource and electricity after the government gave highest importance to transport and power sectors in the last several years.
He pointed out that they needed skilled manpower for the overseas job market in the Middle East and Malaysia. He said the country had to keep growth of inflow of remittance from the expatriate Bangladeshis.
Earlier, he said the size of budget would be around Tk 2,50,000 crore with the size of annual development programme at Tk 79,000 crore. The size of revised ADP has been set at Tk 60,000 in the outgoing fiscal.
-With New Age input
