At this juncture in Bangladesh's economic journey, having lofty ambitions are no longer a surprise; it is in our ability to have such high expectations and meeting them that our nation has experienced such rapid growth over the past 15 years or so.
To that end, however, there remain certain avenues where, despite the desire for ambition, we must remain not only realistic, but humble, owing to our repeated inability to match our targets.
And nowhere is this reality check more necessary than in our revenue collection. While it is admirable for the authorities concerned to set a target of Tk50,000 crore as non-tax revenue (NTR) in the next fiscal year, what must also be remembered is that in the current budget, the target initially set at Tk45,000 crore was later revised down to Tk40,000 crore.
There is no doubt that Bangladesh has historically faced challenges in revenue generation, being especially true for tax revenue, which, instead of showing signs of improvement, appears to only be in further decline.
Indeed, while the International Monetary Fund too has urged Bangladesh to have better revenue generation, simply setting higher targets without an actionable plan in place will only lead to more of what we have seen -- an inability to eventually meet the target.
While the government intends to raise fees across a myriad of services across ministries and other private and public sectors to meet its target, what we hope to see is a concrete plan to do so.
Simultaneously, we hope that these raised prices across critical sectors do not further inconvenience the average Bangladeshi at a time when the cost of availing basic necessities is proving to be so difficult. Ultimately, settling on realistic targets on a yearly basis and generating revenue in a sustainable manner that does not hurt the average Bangladeshi is what we have to aspire towards.