PM Hasina says next budget to cross Tk 5,000b

Prime minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday said the next national budget will be placed in parliament on 13 June and its size will be over Tk 5,000b.

"We placed a Tk 4.64 lakh crore budget for the current fiscal year ... we'll place the new budget in the Jatiya Sangsad on 13 June InshaAllah and its size will be over Tk 5 lakh crore," she said while addressing an iftar party arranged for the leaders of different political parties at her official residence Ganabhaban.

Highlighting her government's various steps taken for the country's development, she said the benefits of development are reaching upto the grassroots level.

"We're making all the arrangements so that everyone can lead a decent life with access to food, clothes, housing, education and medicare," Sheikh Hasina said, adding that the government wants everybody to live with enjoying basic rights and there remain no homeless and deprived of medicare and education.

To her, Hasina said, power is not anything to enjoy, rather it is an opportunity to serve people. "Following this ideology, I've been working for the development of the country and people are getting its outcome," she said.

"Our aim is to reach the fruits of independence to every house so that every person gets a decent life," the prime minister said, mentioning that 93 per cent people have already come under the electricity coverage.

Noting that the living standard of the country's people is enhancing, she said, "We've brought down the poverty rate to 21 per cent from 41 per cent and slash the extreme poverty rate to 11 per cent ... there won't be any extreme poor in the country, InshaAllah."