The run-up to the presentation of the national budget for 1995-96 has generated considerable material in the shape of proposals and suggestions aired by various professional groups. Top level business, industry and service sector leaders have demanded a level playing field vis-a-vis the loss-making public sector corporations which are heavily subsidised and an enabling environment for a private sector-led sustainable growth. On the purely operational plane, the organised professional bodies in the private sector have clamoured tor rationalisation of corporate tax and VAT, continuation of tax holiday, rebates in import duties and licence fees, incentive bonuses, reduction in tax at source and raising of the taxable income ceiling.

Rent-seeking has been roundly criticised and various forms of extortionist collections, basically germane to garbed or open political coercion and a poor law and order situation, which push the costs and prices up. were unwittingly glossed over in the debate, so it seemed.

Somewhat far-fetchedly and obsessively, the one-year operational frame of the budget was overshot by some high thinking academics and professionals who took a longer shot lamenting the lack of political consensus which evidently remained so' very elusive during the last four years to be craved for at all now — in a heated election year, that is.

We are for an order of priorities in the next budget that is addressable and realisable within the duration of the budget. We would like the next budget to protect the purchasing power of the people without fuelling the fire of prices any further. Despite last year's fiscal incentives for price control, prices of essentials did soar.

Then the food-deficit-induced high prices pushed the inflation rate up to 4.5 per cent during July-March of the current fiscal year as compared with only 0.48 per cent in the corresponding period of 1992-93. Even a higher availability of cereals in the market could not significantly alter the priceline for the better. The government has to finance the loss-making corporations, apart from spending Tk. 1000 crore from the next budget on account of pay-hike. ID cards and food-deficit. Then an election year escalation in the expenditure stares us in the face. The infla-jtionary pressure would warrant a contingency monetary control policy.

As for subsidy in agriculture. let research and agro technology be well-financed. To neutralise the effect of unproductive expenditures, we may think of providing low-interest loans to small enterprises, both agricultural and industrial. This will help reduce unemployment in the short run.