Bangladesh News

The government may slash the Annual Development Programme (ADP) by more than Tk 4,000 crore mainly due to poor implementation of the development projects and increased revenue expenditure.

The Budget Monitoring and Resource Committee at a meeting held at the Secretariat yesterday indicated to the planning ministry about possible cut in the ADP for the current fiscal year.

“Although there are some proposals to cut down the ADP to Tk 22,000 crore to Tk 24,000 crore, I think it may be between Tk 22,000 crore and Tk 23,000 crore,” Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam told journalists after the meeting.

Already more than half of this fiscal year has passed but ADP implementation rate is low, he said, adding that it is not necessary to keep an ambitious target that cannot be reached.

“We want to set such a realistic target that could be achieved,” the finance adviser said.

The original size of the ADP is Tk 26,500 crore.

Planning ministry sources had earlier said only 21 percent of the ADP was implemented in the first six months of this fiscal year. Even with a high implementation rate, it would not be possible to utilise more than Tk 20,000 crore of the ADP allocation in the rest six months.

Meeting sources said the planning ministry was asked yesterday to re-fix the ADP size within first week of next month.

Officials of Internal Resources Division (IRD) and Economic Relations Division (ERD) informed the meeting that it would be possible to get more revenue and foreign aid than the budgetary target.

Finance Division officials however told the meeting that more money might be needed as subsidy due to enhanced revenue expenditure on diesel and fertiliser subsidy.

The finance adviser said revenue expenditure will increase significantly due to enhanced subsidy as the prices of petroleum, fertiliser and food items have risen in the international market.