Development activities remain in disarray as government ministries and agencies struggle to recover from last year's disruptions caused by the July uprising, officials said on Thursday.
The sluggish execution of development projects has persisted into the first four months of the current fiscal year, raising concerns about the wider impact on growth and service delivery.
Several large budget-holding ministries performed notably poorly between July and October of FY2025-26, significantly slowing overall progress.
Officials say the pace of implementation has yet to return to pre-unrest levels, leaving the national development agenda far behind its targets.
The ministries and agencies spent only 8.33 per cent of the Tk 2.38 trillion Annual Development Programme (ADP) allocation during the period - around 3-4 percentage points lower than in the years before unrest, Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) data showed.
Due to political unrest in July-August of the last fiscal year, ADP implementation fell to a decade-low level, with agencies spending just 7.90 per cent of the Tk 2.78 trillion ADP during the first four months of FY2025, according to the official data.
By contrast, ADP implementation rates in the same period before the July uprising were significantly higher.
IMED statistics show that public agencies executed 11.54 per cent of their allocations in July-October FY2024, 12.64 per cent in FY2023 and 13.06 per cent in FY2022.
According to IMED, ministries and agencies spent Tk 198.78 billion, 8.33 per cent of the Tk 2.38 trillion ADP, during July-October of FY2026.
Several large ministries posted notably weak performance.
The Health Services Division, the ninth-largest development budget holder, spent only 1.13 per cent. The Roads and Highways Division, the second-largest, utilised 5.13 per cent; the Railway Ministry, the eighth-largest, 4.92 per cent; and the Primary and Mass Education Ministry, the eleventh-largest, spent 5.43 per cent of its allocation.
Meanwhile, others performed comparatively better. The Science and Technology Ministry, the fifth-highest budget holder, utilised 22.85 per cent of its allocation.
The Energy and Mineral Resources Division, the fourteenth-largest, spent 16.02 per cent; the Bridges Division, the twelfth-largest, 14.57 per cent; and the Local Government Division, 13.85 per cent, IMED data showed.
Government agencies also performed slightly better in utilising Project Aid (PA), spending 9.16 per cent of the Tk 860 billion allocation.
By comparison, spending from the GoB fund stood at 7.51 per cent of the Tk 1.08 trillion allocation, while autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies utilised 13.65 per cent of the Tk 11.86 billion allocated to them, according to IMED.
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