A Planning Ministry report has revealed that implementation of the annual development program (ADP) fell drastically to 7.5 percent in the first quarter of FY2023-24(July-September), which is the lowest in 8 years.
This information was found in the data analysis of the updated report released on Monday by the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Department (IMED), a wing of the Ministry of Planning.
“Such a bad situation has not been seen in recent years. Earlier this rate was 7 percent in the same period of 2015-16 financial years,” said Dr Muhammad Abdul Mazid, former Chairman of NBR.
He said revenue shortfall, and delayed release of foreign loans and grants may be caused by such poor ADP implementation.
Dr Mazid also emphasized the appointment of skilled project directors to bring pace to the projects as well as ADP implementation.
According to the IMED report, in the current fiscal year 2023-24, there is an ADP allocation of Tk 274,674 crore. Out of this, 58 divisions and ministries of the government have spent Tk20,609 crore for the implementation of ADP from July to September.
That is, against the allocation, the project implementation rate in these three months is 7.5 percent. This is the lowest in the last eight years, the official document mentioned.
Earlier in FY 2015-16 till September, the ADP implementation rate was 7 percent. Then in the last few years at the same time (July-September) in the FY 2017-18, the ADP implementation rate was the highest 10.21 percent.
Besides, the average was above 8 percent in the rest of the years. Even during the Covid-19 pandemic, this rate was 8.06 percent and 8.26 percent.
As of September of the current fiscal year (FY2023-24), the project implementation, of 53 projects of 6 ministries and divisions is less than 1.0 percent. They are the worst-performing ones. Among them, against 17 projects of Health Education and Family Welfare Directorate, ADP implementation is only 0.07 percent, 16 projects of the Ministry of Public Administration is 0.05 percent, 6 projects of the Ministry of Lands is 0.78 percent.
Besides, 6 projects of the Internal Resources Division, 7 projects of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and 1 project of the Public Service Commission did not spend even a single penny.