Shawdesh Desk:

The government is going to make conservative allocation on the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for FY23 considering the impact of corona on the economy, the Russia-Ukraine war and rising global energy and food prices.

Planning Commission has finalised the draft of Tk 2,460.66 billion main ADP for the next fiscal year, which is Tk 390 billion lower than Tk 28,476.65 total demand for ADP money placed by ministries and divisions, official sources said.

Planning Commission officials dealing with ADP formulation said they have received directives from the government to remain cautious about picking up new projects in ADP because of the corona pandemic and changing global situation.

New ADP allocations have been made in line with the directives and extra caution has been taken to assess the quality of ADP projects, they added.

“The allocations have been made according to documents of government priorities. Ongoing and prioritised projects have got special importance in the resource allocations in new ADP,” commented Planning Secretary Pradip Ranjan Chakraborty.

Education and health sectors are getting priority like in previous years, but ADP money has been set aside for other sectors in line with a government set policy for high, medium and low priority for other projects, he informed.

However, the FY23’s draft ADP size is Tk 207.42 billion or 9.21 percent higher than the original ADP outlay of Tk 2,253.24 billion in the outgoing FY22 and Tk 385.16 billion or 18.56 percent higher than Tk 2,075.50 billion revised ADP (RADP) for the year that saw 7.89 percent cut from the projected foreign resource allocation.

The main ADP allocation has not taken into account the self-financed annual development expenditure plan of autonomous public corporations. The proposed ADP outlay is expected to be finalised at the meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC), the highest economic policy-making body, slated to be held on May 17 with NEC Chief Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair, according to official sources.

Despite the drastic cut in the current fiscal’s foreign resource allocation in ADP, the setting of the Project Assistance (PA) target in the planned development expenditure at Tk 930 billion, which is only Tk 2.25 billion higher than FY22’s preliminary PA estimate of Tk 927.75 billion that finally came down to Tk 702.50 billion.

The transport and communications sector are getting the highest Tk 698.70 billion allocations in the proposed ADP against its Tk 794.90 billion total demand, while the energy and power sector is getting the second-highest ADP resources of Tk 394.12 billion against Tk 410 billion demand and the third-highest amount of Tk 290.81 billion is going to education sector against Tk 302.17 billion total demand placed for the sector.

The health sector, on the other hand, is fetching Tk 192.78 billion with only Tk 1 billion cut from the sought amount as the sector’s importance has increased for the last two years after the corona onslaught.

The local government and rural development division witnessed the highest cut in its demand as it got Tk 164.80 billion against its demand for Tk 282.28 billion ADP money.

But the ministry of defence fetched Tk 12.71 billion, up from its demand for Tk 11.79 billion ADP resources, according to Planning Commission officials.