Two anti-tobacco platforms PROGGA (Knowledge for Progress) and Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance (ATMA) claimed that the proposed national budget for FY2024-25, if adopted, will once again make tobacco products cheaper and more affordable.
‘It will encourage the youth to use tobacco products, increase tobacco-related deaths and illness, and therefore spike the public health expenditure of the government,’ said a press release.
The proposed budget will cause the government to lose the chances of earning BDT 10,000 crore in additional revenues, they said.
To put the changes of tobacco products’ prices into perspective, one may consider the increases in the prices of essential commodities in recent years.
According to the Department of Agricultural Marketing (DAM), the prices of essential goods, such as sugar, flour, and potatoes, have seen a rise ranging from 40 to 90 per cent. On the other hand, the increases in the prices of tobacco products in the proposed budget ranges from 4.48 per cent to 11.11 per cent only, with the prices of bidi remaining unchanged.
This will make tobacco products cheaper compared to essential commodities and pose a threat to public health, said the anti-tobacco groups.
Simultaneously, since the hike in the prices of tobacco products is much lower than the rise in per capita income, it will make tobacco products more affordable. According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, there has been around a 12 per cent increase in the per capita income between FY 2022-23 and FY 2023-24, they said.
‘The retail price as well as the SD imposed on the low-tier cigarettes, which holds 75 per cent of cigarette market share, has seen a very negligible change. We demand that the government set the retail price at least BDT 60 and SD 63 per cent so that it reduces the affordability of cigarettes, safeguards the youth, and increases the revenue of the government manifold,’ said PROGGA Executive director ABM Zubair in his reaction to the proposed national budget.
