Public Health on Top

Despite his declaration to drive away bidi from the country within next three years, the Finance Minister bowed down to the bidi lobby finally. The low income group people are under health risk again. The final budget for 2017-18 FY has set retail price for a non-filtered bidi packet (25 sticks) by TK 12.50 instead of Tk 15. The bidi factory owners deployed bidi workers across the nation when the proposed budget set retail price for per packet bidi to Tk 15 from Tk 10.61. In the name of protecting their interests, the workers held human chains, staged demo, caused road blockade, press conference and even published open letters on newspapers seeking attention from the Prime Minister. Besides, a couple of Parliament Members have favored bidi companies in budget discussion which is really frustrating.
On the other side, BATB is desperate to market its low tier cigarettes ‘International Brand’ by Tk 27 (10 stick) instead of Tk 35. Based on the pressure from mass media, the Finance Minister has declared not the change the minimum retail price and tax rate of ‘international brand’ by TK 35 and 55 percent respectively. However, there are no reflection of the matter in local markets. The BATB is still selling the low tier cigarettes to Tk 27 which was supposed to be sold at Tk 35 which is a concerning issue. Notably, the price of locally manufactured low tier cigarette was set to Tk 27 from Tk 23 to protect the domestic tobacco companies and the price for ‘international brand’ was set to Tk 35. But immediately after the budget declaration, BATB advertised on mass media that their low tier cigarette price is Tk 27 not Tk 35. However, BATB is the only international producer in Bangladesh that produces and markets low tier international brand cigarettes (like Durby, Hollywood, Pilot etc.) and these brands are also available in many other countries. Hence, BATB cannot market its low tier cigarettes by Tk 27. It is to be noted that BATB had meeting with the Finance Advisor to discuss about the matter and the advisor issued a DO letter to the Finance Minister for consideration. Based on this, the Finance Minister ordered the NBR to listen BATB statements and BATB also had meeting with the Finance Minister after budget declaration. Such unwanted attempts drew negative criticisms from mass media. Consequently, the price and tax rate for the low tier cigarettes is sustained until further decisions in the final budget. We expect that Honorable Finance Minister, in his next directives about this issue, will keep the price and tax rate for low tier ‘International Brand’ by Tk 35 and 55 percent respectively. By the same time, the NBR will take legal measures against BATB for violating the directives because Public Health is on Top.