Development spending off to a stuttering start

Development spending in the first two months of the fiscal year has been the lowest in four years in spite of the various initiatives taken by the planning ministry.

Between July and August, Tk 3,141 crore was spent from the annual development programme (ADP) allocation, down 17.71 percent year-on-year. In the first two months of fiscal 2012-13, Tk 4,539 crore was spent.

Giving the justification of greater development demand, a large sum, Tk 97,000 crore, was taken for ADP in fiscal 2015-16 and yet only 3 percent of it could be spent.

The development comes after Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal took several initiatives this term to expedite the ADP implementation.

Kamal held meetings with secretaries of different ministries and the project directors, with the most recent on August 25.

At the meetings, Kamal said the project directors are the heart of the projects and if they are sincere implementation will get impetus.

He also instructed the ministries to take up new project directors through a rigorous selection process, and the planning ministry will soon prepare a guideline on it.

Kamal also directed the ministries to assign officers to monitor the implementation status of projects.

The performances of most of the 10 large ministries and divisions, who got 73 percent of the total ADP allocation, have been very poor, according to the statistics from the Implementation Monitoring Evaluation Division.

For instance, the water resources ministry spent only 0.1 percent of its allocation in the first two months of the fiscal year, the energy and mineral resources division 0.3 percent and the railways ministry 0.34 percent.

The bridges division and the road transport and highways division, which get large chunks of the allocation every year, did not fare any better either.

In the first two months, the bridges division spent only 2 percent of its Tk 8,961 crore allocation.

The majority of the sum has been earmarked for the Padma bridge project and a planning ministry official said the heavy monsoon has barred the bridges division from starting work on it in full swing.