Such malpractices in 74 projects burdened the government with an additional cost of Tk 2,787 crore, said the evaluation report on 175 completed projects under the ADP for fiscal 2004-05.

The Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Department (IMED), which prepared the report, found that the duration of at least 109 projects were increased by 750 times.

IMED sources said although the government approved the additional costs of implementing the projects, there were rampant misuses of money, and completed projects were found to be plagued by corruption.

IMED recently prepared a detailed evaluation report on completed ADP projects for 2004-05 fiscal.

The report said time to time expansion of original projects, inclusion of new items, changes in engineering designs, appointments of consultants, and frequent changes in the posts of project directors are the main reasons for the delays in completing the projects and for the additional costs.

During visits, especially to the communication ministry's projects, IMED teams found low quality work and partially completed projects although the service providers had withdrawn the total bills for the projects.

Citing an example, the summary of the IMED report said its team did not find out the actual expenditure for the Kapashia Bridge project over the river Sitalakhya, implemented by the communication ministry. Besides, the IMED teams found low quality work on Tulshikhali and Maricha bridges on Jinjira-Dohar road in Dhaka.

Low quality work was also found in the project of constructing the Rajshahi city bypass road, which was damaged only a year after completion.

"Such damages to roads are not accepted within a year of construction," the report said.

It also said the inspection team found the soil in some portion of the road to be too fragile even for walking on it. Referring to a project of the Election Commission (EC) titled 'strengthening the Election Commission for improving the election process', the IMED report said the project was for preparing a computerised voter database in 83 districts for holding transparent elections.

The three-year project had started in 1997 and was extended for another five years with a deadline for completion set for June 2005.

According to the IMED report, although the EC spent Tk 32crore allocated for the project, it failed to fulfil its objectives.

The report said, "Only 30 to 35 percent of the work of voter database was completed by the EC." Most interestingly, the EC also failed to enter the voter list of 2005 into the database, it said.

The education ministry spent Tk 1,213 crore in additional costs for four of its 10 completed projects, during FY 2004-05.

"A number of teachers went abroad for higher studies under the modernising and restructuring project of Bangladesh College of Leather Technology, but they did not return yet," the report said adding that in another project the contractor collected its bills without providing furniture for the project as required.

The report went on saying that the stipend programme in the secondary school level did not bring any help for poor female students due to some rigid and complicated conditions, although Tk 1,661crore allocated for the project had been spent.

According to the policies of the stipend programme, every female student of the secondary level is eligible for the grant if she has 75 percent attendance in school and gets 45 percent marks in annual exams.

But due to poor living conditions, most of the female students failed to get 45 percent marks. As a result, the major portion of the stipend went to the students from wealthier families, sources said.

The poor students also failed to avail other grants including tuition and examination fees waivers and stipends for buying books.

Referring to the power ministry projects, the IMED report said project expenditures were increased from 24 to 228 percent. "In a project, the Rural Electrification Board (REB) divided up the project's procurement details in small parts to avoid notifying the higher authorities and the practice was only to create room for corruption," said the report.

According to the report the communication ministry completed a total of 18 projects during FY 2004-05 and 13 of those spent nine to 100 percent more than the original fund allocation, while the ministry extended the time for completion of 14 projects by 15 to 100 percent.

The situation was the same in the housing and public works ministry when four of its total eight projects needed 29 to 84 percent additional funding. The timeframes for project implementations were extended by 50 to 600 percent for at least five projects.

During the same fiscal year, the energy ministry completed 12 projects and the project costs of at least seven of them were increased by 10 to 61 percent, while the timeframes for completions of at least 11 projects were extended by 71 to 750 percent.

The IMED evaluation also found mismanagement in completing projects of the education ministry. The report said the education ministry finished 10 projects during the period and the implementation costs of at least four of those were increased by 23 to 300 percent, while the duration of nine projects were extended by 50 to 116 percent.