Impact of budget

Chittagong, ironically, has the country's poorest networks of roads. Many non-pliable roads, dead alleys and easy-to-be-inundated thoroughfares are the obvious features. What allocation of money has there been made in the budget to widen the roads, dredge the drains, set up sluice gates and build new sewage system?

'Light more light' is the constant cry of the Chittagonians in the face of the PDB freaks with power supply. The Chittagonians would like to know what money has been earmarked in the budget to free Chittagong from the curse of loadshedding. The Chittagonians would also like to know if there had been enough money siphoned to enliven the shrunk water pipes of the WASA with roaring flow of water 24 hours a day.

The questions raised above may easily be terminated by the simple answer that all those are sectarian problems to be wrestled with by the respective departments. But the national budget is the umbrella budget that strengthens, sustains, reinforces, rejuvenates, as well as enfeebles, balks and destroys the secondary financial zones.

Come a new budget, Chittagong is somehow strangely made more crippled than ever before. We the Chittagonians love the sea and the hills, and people from outside Chittagong, and tourists from abroad also romance about the nature here, but, unfortunately, in this inert budget not a single description is to be found about spending money for environment protection and eco-tourism.

The gaping difference between the rich and the poor Chittagonians is already a big social question, but by the grace of this present budget that gap between the top 10 per cent and the bottom 10 per cent of the Chittagonians will be as many as 60 times.

Pennywise economists say that cut your coat according to your cloth. But Chittagonians do not necessarily believe in this, they say the reverse that cut your coat according to your size.

The sea and the hill have taught them to go big, but our finance minister in his ninth appearance as the budget presenter has ignored these very vital eco-cultural phenomena about Chittagong in his budget.

The only salvaging aspect for the Chittagonians is that there is promise and money allocated for the building of a new bridge over the river Karnaphuli.

To the business-minded Chittagonians, time is money, and a budget speech taking half the time of an ODI match is nothing but sheer waste of time, that is, money.

The money in the budget has to talk, and it did not talk.