Finance Division is concerned about the rising public expenditure amid fears that the NBR could fall short of revenue earnings target this fiscal year, officials at the division said.
The worries will be expressed at today’s meeting of the Budget Management Committee at the finance ministry auditorium.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith will preside over the meeting which will also talk about the mismatch of revenue earning figures between NBR and Bangladesh Bank and Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.
Officials said the revenue expenditure increased due to recruitment of 375,000 in the civil service over the past three years, which cost an additional Tk10,000 crore annually from the public exchequer.
Besides, there is a plan to set up more cantonments across the country and for this Tk400 crore more has been sought.
Earlier, Finance Division gave Tk200 crore to lease land for the Ramu cantonment in Cox’s Bazar, an official concerned said.
Officials said there had been little efforts to increase revenue earnings despite the expenditure continued to rise in the last few years.
The implementation of the new national pay scale has added to the woes as it will cost the government an additional amount of Tk6,500 crore annually in payments to the state employees.
Official sources said the committee’s meeting would discuss about the duplication of entries of the NBR and recommend depositing treasury challan to the NBR instead of bank draft.
Finance minister recently expressed dissatisfaction over the NBR performance in first quarter revenue collection and went to ask the NBR chairman to step up efforts during the rest of the fiscal year.
According to the NBR data, the tax collection was Tk5,803 crore short of the target during the first three months of the fiscal. The collection was Tk30,905 crore which, however, marked a 9.5% rise year-on-year.
The budget has set Tk176,370 crore as the fiscal year’s revenue collection target.
According to a government estimate, an additional Tk15,904.24 crore will be needed to pay salaries and allowances under the new pay scale.
The budget documents show that the Finance Division has allocated Tk26,927 crore to pay salaries to civil servants, teachers and educational staff who fall under the Monthly Pay Order (MPO) system.
Bangladesh Bank said the total government loan from the banking sector amounted to Tk4,000 crore between July and October against less than Tk2000 crore one year earlier.
The salaries under the new pay scale would be paid from July this year while the payment of allowances would begin from July next year.
