Apart from widening and deepening social protection, the next budget would consider new measures to create employment opportunities in rural areas during the lean period to help the poor face the challenges of increased food prices, reports UNB.

"If they (poor) cannot be provided with jobs, they would be provided with some compensation," Finance Adviser Dr Mirza Azizul Islam told reporters after a meeting of the Budget Monitoring Resource Committee at Finance Ministry (Monday).

"It can be a mix of physical work and cash (compensation)," he said, replying to a question about the possible nature of the budgetary measures to help the poor face the price situation.

The details of the measures would be worked out later. The Finance Adviser expected the budget for the fiscal 2008-09 to be placed in the first week of June.

He said the revised budget for fiscal 2007-08 would be of around Tk 85,000 crore (excluding expenditure for Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation-BPC), raising it from the original allocation of Tk 79,614 crore. Earlier, the National Economic Council approved the revised ADP of Tk 22,500 crore for the current fiscal, cutting Tk 4,000 crore from the original allocation of Tk 26,500 crore.

Dr Aziz said the expenditure during the current fiscal year is going to be doubled on account of subsidies provided against increased import of food and food related items, fertiliser and petroleum products. He added that the subsidies could be even more than double by the yearend, as demand from different ministries is much higher.

As a result, he said, the overall budget deficit in 2007-08 would increase to some extent, but expected that it would remain below 5 percent of GDP due to better performances in revenue collection and foreign aid.

The budget for fiscal 2007-08 had estimated at overall deficit of 4.2 percent of GDP. "The revenue (collection) position is good with 24 percent growth so far while the external assistance disbursement is going to be historically high this year," said the Adviser.

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