PC trimming list of new projects for RADP

The Planning Commission (PC) has started the process of trimming the list of new projects sent by different ministries and agencies for inclusion in the proposed Revised Annual Development Programme (RADP), officials said Tuesday.
The PC officials said they have already selected some fresh priority projects in energy, power, agriculture and education sectors for inclusion in the RADP thorough scrutiny.
"We will sit again for selecting projects from the transport sector. The new projects for communications, railway and local government and other ministries would be scrutinised," a senior PC officials told the FE.
From Monday, the PC started scrutinizing fresh projects sent by different ministries and divisions for inclusion in the RADP for the current financial year (FY) 2013-14, scheduled to be prepared by next month.
The meeting on scrutiny of fresh projects will conclude today (Wednesday).
The programming division of the PC has already started revising Tk 658.72 billion ADP for the current fiscal. Besides the ongoing projects, some new projects without specific allocations will be included in the proposed RADP.
In the current ADP for the FY2014, the government had included 1,007 unapproved fresh projects without fund allocations, mostly on political consideration, officials said.
The number of such projects (1,007) is almost equal to the approved (1,046) ones in the current ADP.
The government has incorporated 661 unapproved projects, proposed to be financed from its own resources, and other 346 unapproved projects, expected to be financed by different bilateral and multilateral development partners, in the Tk 658.72 billion ADP. Another PC official said the ADP outlay is expected to be slashed as ministries and divisions have failed to implement projects at an expected rate in the first half of the current fiscal.
Since the current ADP had included hundreds of fresh projects, their numbers should be cut only targeting the important ones which would facilitate poverty alleviation, he said.
"We are cautious on selecting projects from a long list of fresh schemes in the ADP. Only those projects which have national priority and very much related to poverty reduction will be incorporated," the PC official said.
He said they would exclude the politically-motivated and less priority projects from the list of fresh projects in the current ADP for quality execution of the development programme.
Most of the unapproved fresh projects in the ADP remain unimplemented every year due to lack of allocation, proper feasibility study and design.
Development experts oppose this sort of practice and say it not only affects quality of work, but also creates room for misappropriation of public money.