Kazi Zahidul Hasan :The government plans to take up a big development budget in the upcoming fiscal year (2015-16) with a view to improving the country’s rickety infrastructure.As part of the plan, the government eyes to make higher allocations, particularly transport and power sector. The large projects will also get priority in the next fiscal’s development budget, according to the Planning Commission (PC) officials.The size of the Annual Development Project (ADP) would be Tk 90,500 crore in the next budget. The PC has already prepared the draft of the ADP to be placed in the next meeting (Thursday) of the NEC for its approval.In the new ADP, transport sectors have been given highest priority followed by the power sectors. The transport sector would get Tk 19,000 crore and the power sector Tk 14,800 crore in the development budget for next fiscal. Earlier, the power sector has sought highest Tk15,300 crore funds for improving the power supply to the consumers. Besides, the transport sector, railway and local government have also demanded higher funds compared to their current fiscal’s allocation Officials familiar with budget preparation said that the government will allocate near about 25,000 crore for the large projects in the upcoming ADP. The Multipurpose Bridge Project would alone receive Tk 7,200 crore in the next budget. When asked, PC Secretary Shafiqul Azam told The New Nation on Sunday that they have drafted the ADP for the upcoming fiscal but it is yet to be finalized.He, however, said that the upcoming budget would target a higher public spending to accelerate the GDP growth.Out of the total ADP of Tk 90,500 crore, the government would provide Tk 58,000 crore funds from its exchequer and Tk 34,500 crore funds have been projected as foreign grants and loans. An amount of Tk 4,000 crore would also be mobilised from the public sector corporations.Out of the foreign funds, Tk 28,900 crore has been projected as loans from the development partners and Tk 5,600 crore as overseas grants.Initially the government framed a Tk 80,315 crore ADP for the current fiscal (2014-15). Later in March last, the government has cut the ADP to Tk75,000 crore due to poor project implementation performance of the ministries and agencies. According to the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) report, the government agencies have spent only 44 per cent of the Tk75,000 crore funds during July-March period this fiscal.The government ministries and agencies are likely to take up more than 1,000 development projects in the next year ADP. Out of the projects some larger ones are expected to be included there.
