Scrutinise projects, maintain austerity in spending

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman instructs officials to maintain austerity in spending and scrutinising development projects to check to what extent they are beneficial to the people.
The direction was given Sunday at the second meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) under the new government, in view of crunch time and government pledges.
"The prime minister has given clear directives regarding development projects. That is, we have to maintain austerity and scrutinise the rationale of spending," State Minister for Planning Zonayed Saki told newsmen after the meeting, held at the secretariat with the prime minister presiding.
He said the prime minister also asked officials to scrutinise to what extent people's welfare was taken into consideration in taking up the projects and whether these projects are aligned with the electoral pledges of the current government.
A decision was made earlier that the current government would review all the projects undertaken by the previous administrations, he says. However, some projects have already reached such level that those do not need to be reviewed.
He says out of 17 projects placed at the meeting, 15 were given the go-ahead while two were put on hold for further scrutiny. According to officials concerned, one of the two projects that could not get through Sunday's meeting is construction of a 21-storey building at Bangladesh Secretariat by spending some Tk 6.49 billion.
The projects approved include Resilient Infrastructure for Adaptation and Vulnerability Reduction (RIVER) Project (1st Revision), Construction of housing for sanitation workers under Chattogram City Corporation (1st revised), Infrastructure development of Dhaka South City Corporation (2nd revised), Emergency water supply in Dhaka city, Maintenance and rehabilitation of railway tracks in the western zone of Bangladesh Railway (Phase-1) and Construction of a broad-gauge railway line from Madhukhali to Magura via Kamarkhali (1st revision).
Also among the projects are Construction of five climate-resilient bridges in Mymensingh division, Border road construction project (Rangamati, Khagrachhari and Bandarban hill districts) Phase-2, Upgrading the Bairagirpul (Barishal)-Tumpchar-Bauphal (Patuakhali) regional highway (Z-8910) (1st revised), Upgrading the Barishal-Bhola-Lakshmipur national highway (N-809) from Barishal (Char Kauwa) to Lakshmipur via Bhola (Ilisha ferry ghat) (1st revised) and Construction of Goma Bridge over the Rangamati River at the 14th km of the Barishal (DinarerPul)-Lakshmipasha-Dumki road (1st revised).
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