23% of ADP outlay going to 10 projects
The government has allocated 23 per cent of its Annual Development Programme (ADP) fund for the next fiscal year behind 10 large projects, including the Rooppur nuclear power plant, to timely implement those.
The National Economic Council (NEC) increased the ADP fund for 2023-24 by 6.8 per cent from the original budget to Tk 2,63,000 crore and approved it during a meeting at the planning ministry, presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, yesterday.
For the next ADP, the government has allocated Tk 60,054 crore for the 10 large projects.
The highest Tk 9,707 crore has been allocated for the Rooppur power plant, which in the revised ADP of the current fiscal year was Tk 11,139 crore.
Following US sanctions on Russia after the Russia-Ukraine war, an uncertainty over implementation of the Rooppur power plant project surfaced as the project has been mostly funded by Russia.
However, at present, implementation of the project is ongoing in full swing.
Although the project got the highest allocation in the next ADP, it has gone down compared to that in the revised budget of the current fiscal year.
When asked about the reduction, Planning Minister MA Mannan told reporters after the meeting that several phases of the project have already been implemented and now it was at a test run stage.
The minister said the allocation for the project had not proportionately reduced as the allocation was made as per requirement.
The estimated cost of the Rooppur power plant project is Tk 1,13,092 crore. As of June 2022, the total expenditure under the project stood at Tk 56,146 crore.
Yesterday, the government also approved Tk 9,081.49 crore for the Matarbari coal-fired power plant project, Tk 8,586 crore for a fourth primary education development programme, Tk 5,870.23 crore for the Dhaka-Ashulia elevated expressway, and Tk 5,500 crore for the Padma Bridge rail link project.
Besides, the government approved Tk 5,498.97 crore for the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport's third terminal, Tk 4,696.26 crore for a physical facilities development project, Tk 3,910.50 crore for Dhaka metro rail (Line-1), Tk 3,778.38 crore for Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib railway bridge, and Tk 3,425 crore for Dhaka metro rail (Line-6).
In the next year's ADP, the portion of fund coming from the government stands at Tk 1,69,000 crore, which is an increase of 10.41 per cent from the original budget.
The amount of fund from foreign sources amount to Tk 94,000 crore, which is an increase 1.08 percent from the original budget.
Besides, allocation for the state-owned enterprises in the next ADP stood at Tk 11.674 crore. If this is taken into account, the size of the ADP for the next fiscal year is Tk 2,74,674 crore while there are 1,309 projects in total.
Also, the NEC meeting yesterday prepared a list of 1,245 new projects which are yet to get any allocation.
These projects will get allocation once they are approved at an Executive Committee on the National Economic Council (Ecnec) meeting.
For these projects, a block allocation of Tk 11,397 crore has been made in the next ADP.
Meanwhile, development spending stood at 50.33 per cent in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, the slowest pace of implementation in five years, official figures showed.
In July-April of 2022-23, the government managed to spend Tk 119,064 crore under its ADP, according to data from the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED).
It was Tk 98,934 crore during the same period in 2021-22, which represented 54.57 per cent of the allocation.
The size of the revised ADP is Tk 236,560 crore for FY23, ending in June.
Between July and April, the implementing entities spent Tk 70,775 crore from the government's portion of the development budget, down from Tk 72,707 crore a year ago.
The use of taxpayers' funds has been slow as the government has taken various austerity measures in project implementation owing to the economic crisis, rising inflation and a US dollar shortage caused by the fallout of the pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war.
The utilisation of foreign funds increased rose by 59.35 per cent in the 10-month period.
Among the 15 highest recipients of the development budget, the health services division was the worst-performing division in July-April as it spent Tk 3,236 crore, which accounted for only 33 per cent of the allocation it received.
Other low-performers included the water resources ministry, the secondary and higher education division and the shipping ministry.
The bridges division was the top performer when it comes to ADP implementation: it spent 68.91 per cent of the allocation.
The science and technology ministry was the second-best performer, spending 65 per cent of its budget. The power division expended 61.38 per cent of the allocation, the IMED data showed.
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