Bangladesh's development works have been hit hard due to the July-August student uprising as the government could spend the lowest-ever development budget under its annual programme, officials said on Monday.
The ministries and agencies implemented only 4.75 per cent of Tk 2.78 trillion annual development programme (ADP) in the first quarter (Q1) of the current fiscal year (FY) 2024-25, official data has showed.
The ADP implementation rate in the same period last FY2024 was much higher of 7.50 per cent, Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) data has showed.
"The student protests during the July-August period and flash flood in August-September period in the country's eastern and northwestern regions have affected the development work seriously. So, the ADP execution rate was poor," said a senior IMED official.
He also said they are hopeful of a recovery on the ADP implementations from this quarter (Q2).
According to the IMED, the ministries and agencies spent Tk 132.15 billion, 4.75 per cent of the Tk 2.78-trillion ADP in the Q1FY2025.
During the same period last FY2024, the ADP execution rate was 7.50 per cent, while in FY2023 was 8.55 per cent, in FY2022 was 8.26 per cent and in FY2021 was 8.06 per cent.
IMED data also showed that the failure to spend money by some ministries and agencies during Q1 of this fiscal year has aggravated poor ADP execution rates as they missed to touch even 1.0 per cent expenditure-mark of their budget allocation.
The water resources ministry, the 10th largest development budget holder, has spent 0.35 per cent while the bridges division, 11th largest one, 0.89 per cent and the health education and family welfare division, 15th largest, 0.91 per cent of their allocations.
Besides, the shipping ministry, the 7th largest development budget holder, has utilised only 1.86 per cent of its allocation while the health services division, 8th largest
budget holder, 2.21 per cent, science and technology ministry, 6th largest budget holder, 3.27 per cent and the civil aviation and tourism ministry, 14th budget holder, 3.76 per cent, IMED data showed.
Meanwhile, the government agencies and ministries showed comparatively better performance in spending money from the Project Aid (PA) as they utilised 5.36 per cent of the Tk 1.0-trillion allocation in the ADP.
The budget spending rate of the GoB fund was 4.02 per cent of the Tk 1.65-trillion allocation and 9.02 per cent of the Tk 132.89-billion allocation by the autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies of the government, the data said.
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