The government on Thursday endorsed a Tk 1.93 trillion development programme slashing allocations by Tk 98 billion from the original outlay due mainly to the poor implementation by public agencies.
Presided over by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the National Economic Council, or NEC, revised the current Tk 2.02 trillion annual development programme, or ADP, at its meeting in Dhaka.
Planning minister MA Mannan said the allocation from the government's internal resources was not trimmed, but it was reduced from the foreign aid portion by Tk 98 billion.
After the meeting, the minister said during the first eight months to February, the government agencies implemented 37 per cent of the ADP, a 2.0 percentage points lower than the corresponding period of the last fiscal.
The minister said the government agencies would try to implement the revised ADP even as the country battles the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said: "I think the government will be able to provide adequate money to the ongoing development projects. So, we haven't cut the allocation from the government's internal resources."
But since the release of committed project aid against different projects from the development partners has some hurdles, the authorities curtailed it by Tk 98 billion to Tk 620 billion from the current allocations of Tk 718 billion.
The government had framed a Tk 2.02 trillion original ADP for the fiscal year, 2019-20.
According to the revised ADP, the government has allocated the highest Tk 474.32 billion to the transport sector, almost a quarter of the total allocation, followed by Tk 268.40 billion, or 13.91 per cent, to the infrastructure planning, water supply and the housing sectors.
Some Tk 236.32 billion went to the power sector, Tk 204.24 billion to the educationand religion sector; and Tk 167.91 billion to the science and ICT sector.
The NEC also cut the allocation of the public sector autonomous and semi-autonomous agencies by Tk 41.15 billion to Tk 82.77 billion.
The government agencies implement over 1,700 projects while the autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies will execute 103 projects in the current fiscal.
In the original ADP, some 1,475 projects were incorporated for the execution.
Mr Mannan said the money supply to the development programme will not be a problem for the government.
Officials of the state-run Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division said they government agencies spent Tk 801.43 billion, only 37 per cent of the total ADP outlay during July to February period of the current fiscal.
Their performance was poor when it came to executing foreign-aided projects.
