Next budget will focus on the poor: Finance minister

Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said today that the budget of the fiscal year 2021-2022 will be dedicated to the poor where people's livelihood will be given the utmost importance.

"The aim of the government is to alleviate poverty by lifting people out of it," the minister said on Wednesday while talking to the reporters after the virtual cabinet committee meeting on public procurement.

He said, "We are taking measures to create pathways out of poverty which will upgrade the status of some people from extreme poverty."

According to the report of two private research institutes, PPRC and BIGD, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused some 2.5 crore people to fall below the line of poverty and the debt burden has doubled for people living in both urban and rural areas.

Upon being asked about the latest research findings, the finance minister said, "We will only accept the data after they are monitored and assessed by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS)."