The approval came from the 2nd Ecnec meeting of the current fiscal year, held with Ecnec Chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

The Prime Minister and Planning Minister MA Mannan joined the meeting from Ganobhaban through a videoconference, while other Ecnec members were connected from NEC Bhaban.

“Today (Tuesday), we placed eight projects of five ministries at the meeting and all the projects got approval. The total cost of the projects is Tk 10,102.03 crore... Tk 10,068.90 crore will be borne from the government’s fund, while the remaining Tk 33.13 crore from the funds of the organisations concerned,” said the minister at a virtual press briefing after the Ecnec meeting.

He said two each of the projects are of Local Government Division, Agriculture Ministry and Land Ministry, one each of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs Ministry and the Power Division.

Talking about the agricultural mechanisation project, the Planning Minister said the government will provide agricultural machinery to farmers at 70 percent and 50 percent subsidised prices in haor and coastal areas respectively.

He said the Department of Agricultural Extension will implement the project by December 2025.

While endorsing the project, the Prime Minister directed the authorities concerned to examine the quality of the locally produced agricultural machines saying that the government will promote local ones if these are of good quality, Mannan said.

The main activities of the project include procurement and distribution of 51,300 machines of different technology (combined harvester, rice transplanter, power thresher dryer, power weeder, power sprayer, potato digger, maize sheller) as well as providing trainings to rural mechanics, agriculture officers, farmers and entrepreneurs.

The major objectives of the project include preventing 10-15 percent of crop from wastage, and saving time and money in cultivation by enhancing the supply and use of modern agricultural machines; reducing agricultural production costs and boosting productivity and thus alleviating poverty.

Ecnec also approved another project titled Increasing Production of Oil-Bearing Crops Project involving Tk 278.26 crore under the Agriculture Ministry aiming to meet the local demand of edible oil and reduce the import costs in this regard.

Besides, the meeting cleared ‘Construction and Development of Road Infrastructures and Drainage System of the newly included 18 Wards of Dhaka North City Corporation (Phase-I) Project with Tk 4,025.62 crore aiming to ease traffic congestion, address waterlogging and ensure smoothing public movement in the extended city areas.

The project's main operations include development of the 182.78-km road network for enhancing the security of vehicular movement and easing traffic congestion, construction of 233.97-km drain and development of 28.51-km canal, installation of LED lights, acquiring 69.48-acre land in the expanded city area.

The DNCC will implement the project by December 2023 and the entire project cost will be borne by the state coffer, said the minister.

During the approval of the project, the Prime Minister asked local government bodies to boost their revenues to be self-reliant for implementing implement development activities with own cost, said Mannan.

Sheikh Hasina asked the authorities concerned to be careful so that many bridges are not constructed indiscriminately. "There are huge bridges over rivers in this country. Everyone thinks there should be a bridge in front of his house. It's not possible financially ... it’ll also cause river drying," she added.

The PM also directed the authorities concerned for taking austerity measures to reduce the project costs avoiding unimportant expenditures.

The Ecnec meeting also cleared the revision of another DNCC project titled 'Construction of Drainage and Footpaths including development of different damaged Road Infrastructures of Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) (2nd revised) Project' at an additional cost of Tk 55.89 crore (original cost Tk 1025.86 crore, but now raised to Tk 1081.78 crore).

The two projects of the Land Ministry are ‘Enhancing digital survey capacity of Land Record and Survey Department for conducting land survey through digital system project involving  Tk 1,212.54 crore and Land Management Automation Project spending  Tk 1197.03 crore.

During the approval of the land projects, the Prime Minister directed the Land Minister for conducting land record and survey properly when it comes to the lands small ethnic groups living in the plain land.

The remaining two projects cleared at the meeting are Power Supply through Installation of Solar Panels in the remote CHT areas (Phase-I) Project with Tk 217.71 crore and Power Distribution System Development, Rangpur Zone (1st revised) Project with an outlay of Tk 94.92 crore.

The minister said the implementation rate of Annual Development Programmes (ADP) was 80 percent in the last fiscal year, which was 94 percent in 2018-19 fiscal year.