Anti-tobacco activists yesterday expressed their grievances as the government refrained from imposing more tax on premium range cigarette in the budget of 2015-16 fiscal year.
They said the government did not pay heed to public health concern, rather its refrainment from the tax imposition facilitated profit making by large tobacco companies.
The anti-tobacco group came up with their grievances at a press conference held in the National Press Club.
In his address, Prof Abul Barkat, chief executive of Human Development Research Centre (HDRC), said the finance minister’s budget proposal is clearly an initiative to protect the interest of multinational tobacco companies.
He added that such type of initiative is clearly a violation of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) while Bangladesh is its signatory.
On June 04, Finance Minister AMA Muhith proposed reducing the price slab of premium range cigarette to Tk70 from Tk90 with only 2% increase in supplementary duty.
The activists, however, praised the government for increasing the price slab of low end cigarette to Tk19 (per 10 sticks) with 48% supplementary duty from Tk15 and 43% supplementary duty.
Muhith said in his budget speech earlier considering the health-risk and harmful effects of tobacco products, the government is committed to reducing the use of tobacco and maximise revenue collection from this sector and thus it intends to comply with global anti-smoking policy.
Considering the interest of local bidi industry workers, no notable reforms or changes to tax structures of bidi sector have been brought about over the last couple of years.
Currently, the price of 25 sticks of non-filter and 20 sticks of filter bidi stands at Tk6.14 and Tk6.92 respectively.
Due to its easy availability, a large number of people smoke this product and become vulnerable to health risk.
Taking all these factors into consideration, “I propose to rationalise the existing tariff value of bidi by raising the price of 25 sticks of non-filter and 20 sticks of filter bidi to Tk7.06 and Tk7.98 respectively,” Muhith also added in his budget speech.
Criticising the finance minister’s initiative, the anti-tobacco activists said increasing the price of bidi along with tax is not sufficient as it will not help reduce the use of tobacco.
The post-budget reaction programme was jointly organised by HDRC and Progga.