Dhaka, Mar 11 (UNB) - Finance Minister AMA Muhith in Parliament Sunday voiced his apprehension that the budget deficit in the current fiscal year may exceed 5 percent of the GDP in the revised budget to stand at Tk 46,328 crore.

The projection for deficit financing in the current budget was Tk 45,205 crore or 5 percent of GDP. “In the revised budget, the budget deficit may stand at 5.1 percent of GDP,” said Muhith while presenting the statement of the budget implementation progress for the July-December period of the current fiscal year.

The Finance Minister informed the house that the revenue earnings target for the current fiscal year might be reduced by Tk 3,500 crore to Tk 1,14,885 crore from Tk 1,18,385 crore.

He said that following demands for subsidy from different agencies which is around 4.3 percent of the GDP, the government is taking steps to allocate 3.2 percent of GDP as subsidy in the current fiscal from the earlier estimation of 2.3 percent. Steps will be taken to manage the rest 1.1 percent in the next fiscal year.

About the implementation of the Annual Development Programme (ADP), Muhith said that till December, the ADP implementation progress reached 27.6 percent where the share of project assistance was only 17 percent, the lowest for the last four years.

For this reason, he said the size of the ADP has been reduced by Tk 5,500 crore to be re-fixed at Tk 40,500 crore. Of the amount, Tk 24,405 crore will come from the domestic sources while Tk 16,095 crore from foreign sources.

Muhith also informed the house that during the July-December period, the top 10 ministries made an expenditure of Tk 10,659 crore, which was 23.2 percent of the total ADP allocation.