PPP projects to receive priority in revised ADP

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Syful Islam The government has asked the ministries and departments concerned to prioritise Public Private Partnership (PPP) related projects while seeking fund in the revised Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the current fiscal year (FY 2012-13), sources said. Ministries and departments have already started revising allocations for the projects, taken under the ADP. The policy guideline, prepared by the Planning Commission (PC), also emphasises giving priority to the projects related to poverty alleviation, agriculture, agro-based industry, power generation, and rehabilitation of cyclones Aila- and Sidr-affected people. It also asked officials to ensure fund allocation for the projects, taken to ensure area-based balanced development, and to divert money to the projects being implemented swiftly from the slow ones. No unapproved projects should be proposed for funding in the revised ADP, it said. The PC guideline also asked them to ensure fund supply to the projects, scheduled to be completed by this fiscal, if necessary funds can be diverted to those from other ongoing projects. It emphasises completion of the ongoing projects instead of taking new ones, considering limitation of resources. The guideline also asked the officials not to include those projects, which have possibility of implementation by private sector, in the revised ADP proposal. In the budget for the FY 13 the government allocated Tk 550 billion for the ADP. During the first five months of the current fiscal (July-November) Tk 133 billion or some 24 per cent of the total allocation was utilised by different ministries and departments. The government in the previous fiscal (FY 2011-2012) spent Tk 378.78 billion, or 92 per cent of the total Tk 410.80 billion outlay in the revised ADP. After taking office the Awami League-led alliance government introduced PPP, and kept Tk 25 billion in the FY 2009-10 for implementing projects under the system. But the fund could not be utilised because of 'bureaucratic tangles'. The government kept Tk 30 billion for PPP projects in last two fiscals also, but could not spend a single penny. In the current FY another Tk 30 billion has been allocated under PPP system, and some eight projects are selected for implementation.