The Cabinet in the meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday cleared the Health Development Surcharge Management Policy 2017, in which the fields to spend the surcharge were named. After the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam briefed the reporters about the policy. The 14 fields include operations of the National Tobacco Control Cell, task force to implement tobacco control law, tobacco tax cell under the NBR, anti-tobacco campaign and research. We are working on achieving that target," the Cabinet secretary said. Slapped in 2014, the 1 percent surcharge on tobacco products brought the government Tk 3 billion annually, which was spent on the health sector.

Source: bd News24 October 16, 2017 22:07 UTC