VOCTA presents 19-points proposals for FY25 budget

The Voluntary Consumers Training and Awareness Society (VOCTA) has advised the government to increase revenue without putting pressure on consumers in the upcoming budget subsidizing agriculture and power sectors.

It has also called for ignoring IMF pressure and suggested effective steps to curb inflation and counter syndicates that control the market system.

Executive Director Md Khalilur Rahman Sajal gave these suggestions on behalf of VOCTA, an active organization of consumer rights protection movement, at a press conference organized at Abdus Salam Hall of Jatiya Press Club on Sunday.
Chairman of the consumers right body, Dhaka University professor Dr Hossain Uddin Shekhar, Vice Chairman Sanwar Hossain Nowroz, Directors Lutfar Rahman Liton, Dr Latiful Bari, Mohsinul Karim Lebu, Saidul Abedin Dollar, Mizanur Rahman Talukder, Fazlul Haque, Noorun Nabi and Gholam Kabir were present.

They presented a 19-point recommendation in continuation of the pre-budget recommendations of 2022-23 and 2023-24 to make the upcoming budget of 2024-25 more people-oriented. The government is scheduled to present the budget for 2024-25 in the first week of June.

Khalilur Rahman Sajal said in the past years, unbridled increase in the price of goods and unemployed people took place while peoples income had only decreased.

The commodity market was held hostage by syndicates making consumers condition utterly fragile. Most consumers lost purchasing power.

VOCTAs budget recommendation thus include steps to reduce price of goods, increasing consumers purchasing power, keeping import duties and taxes on daily goods including rice, pulses, sugar and edible oil at tolerable level.

It has moreover suggested increasing duty-tax on consumable goods of the rich including luxury goods, strengthening, strengthening monitoring of ultra-profitable business groups, actions against market syndicates and expanding TCB outreach to people with limited income.

It has also called for prevention of middlemen who increase in the price of agricultural products, taking measures to create farmers direct access to retail market, adoption of employment and income-raising measures and cost-saving policies by increasing production and supply in the budget plan.

It has also called for subsidizing fertilizer and fuel despite IMF pressure and urged that the budget should take measures to bring down the price of medicine at a bearable level of the people.