This year's budget starts with a few important events. First, the government has declared the national pay scale very recently. Unusually too, the pay scale declaration came before the budget. Sweet or sour, the new pay scale stands to claim a clarification from the Finance Minister on its impact on the price levels as well as its sources of funding. Already the economy is poised to erode the real income of the earners with rising prices. If the extra doses of a few thousand crores of takas tend to come from banks, the impact could be to adversely impinge on the macro-economic stability. But if the extra bucks come from additional taxes or other means of revenue generation, the negative impact could be minimized partially. If the second option is chosen, with a very low income tax base of the country, one could possibly conclude that the axe of indirect tax burdens would fall on the low-income groups. By and large, once the money illusion is forgotton, people would discover that their increased salary has already been earning less with rising prices of essential commodities.

Another event needs urgent attention. According to government surveys, inequality of income has been widening over the years. Admittedly, economic growth has been up, and so is the gap between the rich and the poor. That means, perhaps, poor people have less access to growth promoting factors than the richer ones in the society. The sources of income such as property income, income from skilled profession, and unearned or black income have traditionally been the domain of the richer segments and of the few. One would also argue that the trickle down hypothesis does not seem to work at the moment in Bangladesh. The citizens of the country have the right to know from the Finance Minister as to why inequality has been increasing over the years and what steps the government plans to take up to mitigate the inequality. The fact that the gini-coefficient -- an index of inequality -- is relatively low in Bangladesh compared to our neighbouring countries cannot not be an argument of consolation. A pro-poor growth strategy needs to be on board to arrest the upcoming upheavals and social unrest emanating from inequality.

Education is one of the mitigating factors. Successive governments have been granting larger allocations to education to claim credit. But what, how, and for whom is the education? If it is madrasha education rather than scientific education, the results are likely to be perverse from an economic point of view. If the allocation goes for construction of buildings and hiring more teachers, rather than for logistic support to teachers or teaching materials, higher allocation might return lower output for the nation. One of the innovative ideas of recent years has been to encourage girls' education. But taking the education system in the country as a whole, different institutions harbour inequality in their mode of teaching and hiring of inputs. Primary schools or colleges in far-flung rural areas lack the basics such as black-boards, benches, good teachers, etc. while the schools in urban areas abound with such facilities.

The third important aspect is agriculture. The sector has been starved of due funds for research and extensions for a long time, whereas our agriculture has already displayed its competence, not only in terms of attaining self-sufficiency in rice, but also in terms of producing competitive crops. High Value Agriculture as we call it and agro-processing activities should attract the attention of the government in terms of incentives, institutions, and innovation. Bearing in mind that agricultural activities carried out in rural areas are mostly done by poor farmers, the directional change would turn out to be pro-poor

The Finance Minister is also expected to say something on creeping corruption in the economy. Having stood first in corruption for a third consecutive term (and the fourth in the offing), taxpayers would like to know for whom the economic bell tolls. More specifically, the budget speech should bring forth the steps the government has taken to downsize corruption in the economy. According to economic experts, about 2-3 percentage points of GDP growth rate is being lost due to corruption every year.

The Finance Minister is also expected to delve deep into the governance issue. There is no doubt that grievous governance and creeping corruption are eating into the heart of our economy. The situation, allegedly, has not improved over the years. When a series of grenade attacks on opposition leaders including that on the Leader of the Opposition and the British High Commissioner go unheeded and unearthed, when the image of the country has already reached its lowest ebb ever, a Finance Minister should not bypass the issue on the plea that such things happen everywhere in the world. When Judges of the Supreme Court are alleged to have taken bribes and some others are on the path to eking out a living the same way, one can hardly accept the argument that corruption prevails even in India or China. For the sake of the society, the Finance Minister should call a spade a spade.

The upcoming revised budget could witness a rise in revenue expenditures. Public administration and defense might march ahead in terms of resource allocation. In economics, these expenditures are mostly bracketed as unproductive. It remains to be asked as to why revenue expenses should be hiked and what benefits the society is getting from them. How many children could be immunized or sent to schools or how many mothers could be saved from anemia if we forgo the purchase of a frigate? How much if resources could be earmarked for infrastructure facilities if we cut the cabinet size in half?

The upcoming budget could also be a big budget with "political projects" paving the way for winning the hearts of voters. That could worsen the already fragile macro-economic stability and a big budget might invite big trouble for the government in its next election. Hopefully, the Finance Minister will address our before-thoughts.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University.