Budgetary support for women in every sector should be increased as Bangladesh is lagging behind in women development, speakers said at seminar yesterday.

They said the budget should give the women entrepreneurs more chances so that they can come up with new initiatives and have their rights in the wealth.

The speakers said steps should be taken under the national budget to ensure gender equality between men and women in education, and reduce maternal mortality rate, which are among the millennium development goals.

The seminar titled 'We Want National Budget to Achieve Millennium Development Goals for Women' was coorganised by Bangladesh Nari Pragati Sangha (BNPS) and Institute for Environment and Development (IED).

Dr Akbar Ali Khan, former adviser to a caretaker government, said Bangladesh is lagging behind in women development but he hoped that the government would take initiatives in this regard in the next budget.

“Though it's said that achievements have been made in women development over the past ten years but I don't find much of the development. A lot of projects have been taken which were described as projects for women development but those actually did not bring any development to them."

The former finance adviser mentioned some problems in formulating and implementing the budget.

"One is that the parliament play very little role in the process of budget formulation," he saidurgingthegovemmenttoensurepartici-pation of the parliamentary standing committees and the lawmakers in the process.

"Another problem is the administra-

tion is centralised," he said, adding the budget cannot be implemented in such a centralised administrative structure.

Protima Pal Majumder, senior researcher at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, presented the keynote paper at the seminar.

In her paper, she said women's incomes, possessions and capital should be exempted from paying the tax and the commercial organisations run by women should be kept out of the reach ofVAT.

Dr Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury, state minister for women and children affairs, Meher Afroz Chumki, chairperson of the parliamentary standing committee for women and children affairs, spoke at the seminar as chief guest and special guest respectively.

Rokeya Kabir, executive director of the BNPS, presided over the seminar.