The interim government yesterday approved a Tk 226,125 crore revised Annual Development Programme (ADP), while the health sector saw more than a 50 percent reduction in its original allocation despite being a priority sector.

Government spending under the Annual Development Programme (ADP) slowed to a three-year low in the first 10 months of the current fiscal year (FY) of 2023-24, with the implementation rate dropping to 49.26 percent.

Spending under the Annual Development Programme (ADP) has been going slow in the current fiscal year (FY), with implementing agencies having used just 22.48 percent of their allocations till December last year, official figures showed.

Despite repeated promises to better utilise the allocated funds for development, this fiscal year’s spending so far has been the lowest in eight years.

Ahead of the upcoming national elections, the local government division (LGD) has spent more money from the annual development programme (ADP) than other major ministries and divisions.

The amount is 8.58 percentage points lower than the previous year

There is not much in it to make us feel better in terms of its focus and measures.

It seems the government is doing an about-turn from the austerity stance taken at the start of the fiscal year.

Foreign assistance utilisation by the government has gone up by 1.57 per cent year-on-year during the first two months of the current fiscal year, thanks to improvements in the use of project aid. 

The government’s austerity measures have hit implementation of the annual development programme (ADP) in the first month of the current fiscal year, with just 0.96 per cent of the total allocation being spent, the lowest in the last four years. 

The pace of implementation of development schemes of the government hit a three-year high in May of the outgoing fiscal year with Jatiya Sangsad secretariat topping the list while the Finance Division sits at the bottom.

Pragmatism was the order of the day when the finance division sat down to draft the development budget for fiscal 2021-22.

The government has allocated large funds for several mega projects under the next fiscal year's Annual Development Programme (ADP) to speed up the implementation of the projects ahead of the next national polls.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approves 13 projects involving an overall estimated cost of Tk 12,415.79 crore including one project to ensure infrastructural development of some 3,250 private secondary schools across the country with Tk 5,237.38 crore.

The implementation of at least half a dozen foreign-aided projects involving more than Tk 6,000 crore has become uncertain as those

Sanchayapatra – a supposed welfare instrument – is actually a Trojan horse that threatens the future of our development budget, and thus reduces growth potentials for the nation. The higher the sale of NSCs, the higher the future interest liability which will definitely eat up a bigger pie of our budget, reducing the share of the Annual Development Programme (ADP).

Most ministries and divisions of the government fail to utilise the full financial allocation made to them annually.