DHAKA, – The National Economic Council (NEC) today approved a Taka 1,92,921 crore Revised Annual Development Programme (RADP) for the current fiscal year giving the highest priority to the transport sector.

The approval came from a meeting of the NEC held at its conference room in the city’s Sher-e-Banglanagar area with NEC Chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the Chair.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, Planning Minister MA Mannan said that incorporating Taka 8,277.56 crore funding against 103 projects of the autonomous bodies and corporations, the overall RADP size stood at Taka 2,01,198.56 crore.

But, excluding the fund of the autonomous bodies and the corporations, the size of the original RADP stood at Taka 1,92,921 crore. Of the amount, Taka 1,30,921 crore would come from the local sources while the rest Taka 62,000 crore from foreign sources.

Mannan said the total number of projects under the RADP now stands at 1,846 including 1,597 investment projects, 143 technical assistance projects and one project from the JDCF.

The original ADP size for the current fiscal year was Taka 2,02,721 crore and Taka 9,800 crore was downsized from the project assistance portion in the revised ADP.

According to the Planning Commission, the transport sector received the highest RADP allocation of Taka 47,432 crore (24.59%) followed by physical planning, water supply and housing sector Taka 26,840 crore (13.91%), Power sector Taka 23,632 crore (12.25%), Education and religious sector Taka 20,424 crore (10.59%), science and ICT sector Taka 16,791 crore (8.70%), rural development and rural institution sector Taka 15,755 crore (8.17%), Health, nutrition, population and family welfare sector Taka 10,109 crore (5.24%), agriculture sector Taka 6,609 crore (3.43%), water sector Taka 6,368 crore (3.30%) and public administration sector Taka 5,147 crore (2.67%).

The NEC meeting was informed about the latest figures of the implementation of the ADP in the current fiscal year and also the implementation figures of the ADP for the last fiscal year (FY19). During this July-February period, the ADP implementation rate stood at 37.26 percent with an expenditure of Taka 80,143.06 crore. The ADP implementation rate in FY19 stood at 94.66 percent with an expenditure of Taka 1,67,186 crore.

The Planning Minister said at the very outset of the NEC meeting, the issue of COVID-19 came up for discussion for nearly one hour.

He said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the meeting stressed the need for not getting panicked due to novel coronavirus side by side creating mass
awareness and taking precautionary measures on the issue.

Appreciating the efforts of the project officials and other staffs for rendering their hard work towards utmost utilization of ADP, the Premier also
directed them to do more hard work and thus utilize more the RADP allocation efficiently.

Answering to a question, the Planning Minister said there is no doubt that there would be some impact on the country’s economy due to COVID-19 while there will also be some impact on the national income.

Asked whether there will be any impact on the project implementation due to revenue collection shortfall in the current fiscal year, Mannan said no
government in the world really suffers from shortage of money. “There will be no problem in project implementation although there is revenue collection shortfall.”

Replying to another question, Mannan said such situation is yet to be created for enforcing lockdown in the country due to COVID-19 adding that the
people of the country is not habituated to it. He said that there would not be any lockdown, rather there could be tightening.

The Planning Minister also informed that the Ministry of Heath is working to extend the COVID-19 testing kits up to the divisional level. “Be careful
and be aware (of COVID-19) and thus do your work,” the minister said.

Terming the novel coronavirus as a deadly global problem, the Planning Minister suggested to minimize unnecessary movement of people and to go for self-quarantine if anyone develops certain symptoms of novel coronavirus. He also told a questioner that the government as a whole would not halt its activities in the wake of COVID-19.