The agriculture minister has expressed her dissatisfaction at the slow progress of National Agricultural Technology Project (NATP), official sources said.
Matia Chowdhury at the ministry's recent Annual Development Programme (ADP) review meeting expressed her dissatisfaction over NATP's poor implementation, official sources said.
She directed the authorities concerned to expedite the project implementation process after finding out the constraints for the sake of timely completion.
The Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) is working to detect problems hampering project implementation. BARC hopes to solve the problems within the next two months, a deputy secretary of the ministry said.
The implementation progress of the five NATP projects in the first two months (July-August) of the current fiscal year 2013-14 was only 2 per cent or Tk 23.644 million against the allocation of Tk 1.3892 billion, according to the ministry data.
The NATP has four components, viz., agricultural research support, agricultural extension support, supply chain development and project coordination and management.
These components are being implemented through seven implementing units. These are: i) Project Coordination Unit (PCU), Ministry of Agriculture (MoA); ii) Project Implementation Unit (PIU), Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC); iii) Project Implementation Unit (PIU), Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE); iv) Project Implementation Unit (PIU), Department of Fisheries (DOF); v) Project Implementation Unit (PIU), Department of Livestock Services (DLS); vi) Krishi Gobeshona Foundation (KGF); and vii) Hortex Foundation (Hortex), according to the ministry webpage.
In July-August of current fiscal, only 2 per cent, 3 per cent, 1 per cent, 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent of the projects were implemented respectively by the PCU, DAE, BARC, KGF and Hortex, the ministry data said.
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