Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, has sharply criticized the proposed budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, branding it as fundamentally resistant to reform and detrimental to equality.
He delivered the commanding assessment on Wednesday during a dialogue titled 'National Budget 2025-26: What Have the Neglected Received?' organized by the Citizen's Platform for SDGs at the Lakeshore Hotel in Gulshan.
"This budget is flawed; it is reform-averse," Bhattacharya declared, asserting that the fiscal plan fails to honour the very principles the government once championed. "The reform consciousness we brought to the forefront, the work this government itself had us do, they have not remained faithful to it."
He directly labelled the fiscal proposal as an anti-equality budget. The economist explained that expectations for this budget were immense, following a government that came to power through a major political upheaval and on a platform of combating inequality. Against this backdrop of high hopes for a departure from tradition, the budget has emerged as a source of profound disappointment.
"Expectation has been met with frustration," he stated, noting that the desire was for something different, but in many areas, the budget has proven to be entirely conventional.
Echoing this sentiment of unfulfilled expectations, former economics professor of Jahangirnagar University, Anu Muhammad, argued that while one cannot expect sweeping changes from a temporary, interim government, the administration's origin in a mass uprising created a legitimate anticipation for the seeds of change.
"We had hoped to see a reflection of that in the budget," he remarked. Adding another layer of specific fiscal concern, CPD's Distinguished Fellow Dr Mustafizur Rahman pointed to a critical contraction in social safety net provisions.
He warned that this reduction in social security would not only harm the budget for the relevant year but will also prove damaging for the year that follows.
The criticism extended to the financial sector, with ICMAB President Mahtab Uddin Ahmed delivering a stark verdict. "The capital market is completely finished," he said, adding that the government has done nothing for the capital market in this budget.
Highlighting the real-world consequences for marginalized communities, transgender representative Sanjiboni Sudha pointed out the persistent gap between allocation and action.
"Allocations are made in the budget, but they are not implemented," she said, explaining that this failure leads to no improvement in the quality of life or employment opportunities for the transgender community, leaving them without income.
