The National Economic Council (NEC) approved on Tuesday a Tk 1.58 trillion Revised Annual Development Programme (RADP) for the current fiscal year (FY18) downsizing the original ADP of Tk 1.64 trillion, reports UNB.
"The NEC today approved the revised original ADP making a Tk 49.50 billion cut from the part of foreign sources," said Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal at a briefing after the meeting held at the NEC conference room in the city with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
Besides, the amount of the organisations' own fund was cut by Tk 15.40 billion and it now stands at Tk 92.13 billion in the revised ADP, he said.
So, the ADP size excluding the organisations' own fund now stands at Tk 1.48 trillion of which Tk 963.31 billion coming from local sources while the rest Tk 520.50 billion from foreign sources.
The Planning Minister said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has directed him to consider the additional demands of various ministries and divisions and thus make additional allocations during the final formulation of the revised ADP.
There will be no additional fund constraints for the ministries and divisions which will be able to utilize the additional funds, he said.
The Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) of the Planning Commission placed the ADP implementation progress report at the NEC meeting.
Mustafa Kamal said the ADP implementation during the July-February period (8 months) of the current fiscal year (FY18) reached 38.01 per cent with an expenditure of Tk 623.72 billion.
"The ADP implementation rate during the July-February period of the last fiscal year, however, was 36.91 per cent with an overall expenditure of Tk 453.52 billion," he said.
The ADP implementation rate during the 2015-16 fiscal year was 34 per cent.
"In terms of expenditure, the ADP implementation rate almost doubled in the past three years. The GDP growth will comparably high as all indexes of current fiscal year were positive", the minister said.
Talking about the economic growth, the Planning Minister said the country's overall macroeconomic situation will be much better at the end of the current fiscal compared to the last fiscal year's as the major macroeconomic indicators like export earnings, remittance inflow and revenue generation are on the rise.
He said the possible GDP growth in the current fiscal year will exceed the fiscal target of 7.4 per cent growth.
The minister, however, did not make any specific projection of GDP growth saying that they will come up with the projection in mid-April.
Mustafa Kamal said the Prime Minister has directed the authorities concerned to avoid wasteful expenditures while revising any project, installing signboards in the project areas raising the briefs of any project before people and providing the rate of return and risk measurements in the DPP (Development Project Proforma) to avoid the lengthy process in project approval.
Planning Division Secretary Md Ziaul Islam said the NEC meeting adopted a total of seven proposals, including one on the overall number of projects.
He said a total of 1,658 projects were included in the RADP including 1,365 investment projects, 143 technical assistance projects, 3 projects from the Japan Debt Cancellation Fund and 147 projects from the organisations' own funds.
