The government has largely failed to implement pledges made in the national budgets for two financial years to introduce a universal pension scheme and a system to submit income tax returns online.

The universal pension scheme announced in the budget for the financial year 2019-20 and iterated by finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in the budget for the outgoing financial year 2020-21 is still on the drawing board.

A proposal of the finance minister for income tax returns submission online could not be prepared by the National Board of Revenue until the expiry of the tax returns submission deadline for FY21 on December 30, 2020.

While Finance Division officials blamed the Covid pandemic since March 2020 for the sluggish implementation of the budgetary commitments, economists found a lax capacity of government officials for the sorry state.

Finance ministry officials said that a retired additional secretary of the Finance Division was appointed as a consultant to make an outline on the ‘universal pension authority’, aiming at including all people employed in formal and informal sectors under the proposed universal pension scheme.

But the exercise has remained stalled since the beginning of the current fiscal year, said Finance Division officials.

According to the officials, nearly eight lakh people — government employees and a handful of private sector officials and workers — enjoy monthly pension benefits.

Besides, the government is providing monthly allowance of Tk 500 to around 35 lakh elderly people under a social safety net programme.

Former NBR chairman Abdul Majid said that taxpayers were deprived of Tk 2,000 rebate announced by the finance minister along with the proposal to introduce the online tax returns filings.

He also said that the optimism expressed by the finance minister in the budget on implementation of the proposed Customs Act, 2020 had yet to be executed as the parliament had yet to pass the bill.

Nearly one tenth of the planned electronic fiscal devises of 1,051 has been installed under the VAT Online Project that has been extended for six months until June 2021.

Policy Research Institute executive director Ahsan H Mansur said that he had expressed doubt about the success of the new VAT law due to an implementation delay by at least six years after the bill was passed in the parliament in 2012.

The county’s tax-GDP ratio has remained static for the past one decade as budgetary proposals on augmentation of higher revenue have been implemented partly.

A proposal for introducing crop insurance has also been implemented partly but progress on a health care-related research programme  has been dissatisfactory, although Tk 100 crore was allocated under the Integrated Health-Science Research and Development Fund in the current budget.

Finance Division officials said that no fund had been disbursed from the fund proposed by the finance minister for the development of research in health-education and science and technology.

The fund, to be operated under a high-powered committee consisting of experienced researchers in the health sector, nutritionists, public health experts, sociologists, economists, environmentalists, civil society and other suitable representatives, has yet to start functioning, said Finance Division officials.

Economists said that the implementation status of budgetary pledges was supposed to be discussed during the passage of the supplementary budget.

But unfortunately, there is no record of major discussions about budgetary commitments in the parliament, they said.

They also said that the Covid pandemic had also limited the function of the parliament since March 2020.

Finance ministry officials said that the pandemic had also delayed publication of important annual documents, including the economic survey. The last economic survey was made public at last six months after the scheduled time.