The government increased its development spending by almost 34% to Tk80,315 crore for the next fiscal year from this fiscal’s revised outlay, yesterday.
However, the total development expenditure was raised to Tk86,000 crore as an additional Tk5,685 crore was included for the self-financed projects of autonomous bodies and corporations.
In the Annual Development Programme (ADP), around Tk8,100 crore has been allocated for the transportation sector for the Padma Bridge project, which hit a snag in 2012 after the World Bank scrapped its loan over corruption allegations.
The National Economic Council (NEC) approved the ADP for the 2014-15 fiscal at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
The approved Tk80,315 crore original ADP for the next fiscal is 22% higher than the Tk65,872 crore original outlay and 34% more than the Tk60,000 crore revised allocation of the outgoing fiscal.
Of the total outlay, around Tk51,331 crore, which is nearly 60% of the total ADP, will come from domestic resources, Tk27,700 crore or 34.5% will come from foreign assistance and Tk1,200 crore will come in as budgetary support.
Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said the ADP size has been fixed to match the demands of different ministries.
He said proposals of Tk79,031 crore outlays for the original ADP and another Tk5,685 crore for the autonomous bodies and government corporations were placed before the NEC meeting.
The prime minister has enhanced the total size of the original ADP by Tk1,284 crore to Tk80,315 crore while the proposed Tk5,685 crore allocations for the autonomous bodies and corporations remains unchanged, he said.
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,” 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,” he said.
Referring to the past ADP implementation record, he said in nine months of the current fiscal year only 43% of the ADP was implemented, which showed the true administrative capacity.
The government has taken up 1,187 projects for the next ADP. Of which, some 879 projects are for investment, 134 for technical assistance, 21 included in the Japanese Debt Cancellation Fund (JDCF) and 153 to be implemented with the corporations and autonomous bodies’ own funds.
A total of 683 unapproved projects were kept on the green page in the ADP, 276 new, unapproved projects were kept for foreign assistance,
while 16 projects were included under the public-private partnership.
The transportation sector got the top priority in the new ADP, with around Tk18,098 crore kept aside for that sector. The amount accounted for nearly 23% of the total ADP.
Education and religion received the second highest allocation of Tk9,403 crore or almost 12%; power got the third highest of Tk9,300 crore or 11.8%; and infrastructure, water supply and housing got the fourth largest allocation of Tk7,877 crore or 9.97% of the total ADP outlay.
The above sectors were followed by rural development with an allocation of Tk6,871 crore or 8.7%, agriculture with an allocation of Tk5,575 crore or 7% and health with an allocation of Tk4,943 crore or 6.25%.
