ADP spending rises 35pc

The government's development spending rose 35 percent year-on-year to Tk 62,372 crore in the first eight months of 2017-18 thanks to increased use of foreign aid.

Project aid utilisation increased 108 percent year-on-year to Tk 25,341 crore during the period, according to the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division.

In comparison, the use of the government's own funds rose 14.36 percent to Tk 33,654 crore.

However, development spending by state-owned enterprises declined 15.19 percent to Tk 3,377 crore.

For 2017-18, the government set aside Tk 164,085 crore for development spending, which was revised down to Tk 157,594 crore in the National Economic Council's meeting held on Tuesday.

If the revised ADP is compared, ministries and divisions will have to spend Tk 95,222 crore in the next four months to utilise the full allocation.

The spending trend usually remains slow at the beginning of the year, which gets some momentum as the year progresses.

Due to spending in haste, wastage of funds happens, economists say.

However, Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on different occasions said the physical work of different projects goes on around the year.

The financial progress of any project can be calculated at the end of the month, when the contractors of the projects are paid, he said.

Of the 15 large ministries and divisions that account for 80.83 percent of the allocation, five spent a higher amount than the average.

The five are: the power division 74.73 percent, local government division 49.01 percent, science and technology ministry 42.09 percent, road transport and highways division 37.10 percent and the energy and mineral resources division 35.42 percent. The railways ministry got the fourth highest allocation of Tk 13,001 crore in the current fiscal year. It spent only 12 percent of the allocation in the first eight months.

The Padma Rail Link project is the current ADP's biggest project, which got an allocation of Tk 7,600 crore, a planning ministry official said.

China will provide two thirds of the project fund. But the expected expenditure is not increasing as the loan agreement has not yet been signed, the official said.

The finance ministry has already received the draft loan agreement, which has been discussed in the inter-ministerial meeting. Very soon the loan agreement will be signed, a finance ministry official said.

However, the planning ministry official said they do not know how much money of the fund could be spent in the current fiscal year.

The Padma bridge project is being implemented under the Bridges Division and most of the allocation of the Division is for the bridge project.

However, the division spent only 27.05 percent of the total allocation of Tk 8,454 crore in the first eight months.