The government has approved a development spending of Tk97,000 crore for the next fiscal year, thanks to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who influenced enhancing the figure by Tk4,500 crore from the actual proposal.
The allocation of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) is 16.7% higher than Tk80,315 crore original outlay and 30% more than the Tk75,000 crore revised allocation of the outgoing fiscal year.
The National Economic Council (NEC) approved the ADP for the 2015-16 fiscal at a meeting, chaired by the prime minister.
However, the total development expenditure stood at Tk1,00,997 crore with an additional amount of Tk3,997 crore allocated for the self-financed projects of autonomous bodies and corporations.
The allocation for the autonomous bodies and corporations, however, came down from Tk5,685 crore in previous fiscal year.
Explaining the salient features of the ADP, Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said the ADP size had been fixed to match the demands of different ministries and agencies.
He said proposals of Tk92,500 crore outlay for the original ADP and another Tk4,500 crore for the autonomous bodies and government corporations were placed before the NEC meeting.
Under new ADP, the transportation sector got the top priority in the new ADP, led by the country’s largest infrastructure project Padma bridge construction.
Of the total outlay, around Tk62,500 crore, which is nearly 61.88 % of the total ADP, will come from domestic resources and Tk34,500 crore or 38.2% from foreign assistance.
Kamal said the development strategy includes improvement of existing infrastructure and construction of new roads and bridges to improve connectivity, social services delivery through establishment of new facilities, upgradation and removal of deficiencies from existing education, health and drinking water facilities.
The government has taken up 1,123 projects for the next ADP. Of which, some 854 projects are for investment, 132 for technical assistance, 12 included in the Japanese Debt Cancellation Fund (JDCF) and 125 to be implemented with the corporations and autonomous bodies’ own funds.
A total of 857 unapproved projects without allocation were kept on the green page in the ADP, 368 new unapproved projects were kept for foreign assistance, while 40 projects were included under the public-private partnership.
The number of unfinished projects taken in the previous fiscal year was 209.
Power sector got the second highest allocation, followed by physical planning, water supply and housing, education and religion.
The above sectors were followed by rural development and rural institution, health, nutrition, population and social welfare sector and agriculture.
Like previous years, former finance adviser to the caretaker government Mirza Azizul Islam, however, expressed doubts over the implementation of the new ADP.
“It will be very difficult to implement such a large ADP as we have seen before,” he said. “I have lots of doubt about the financial resources needed to implement this, if the revenue growth trend and possible foreign aid disbursement are taken into account.”
It has become a tradition that big size ADP with too many projects are taken every year for boosting public expenditure in order to keep the wheel of the economic growth running, observers said.
But expenditure scenario is very poor at the end of the fiscal year, they said.
In 10 months of the current fiscal year, only 56% of the ADP has been implemented, meaning the rest 44% will have to be spent in two months, which is quite difficult.