The caretaker government (CG) has finalised a Tk 265.00 billion annual development programmne (ADP) for the upcoming fiscal, giving top priority to the power sector. Allocation for the problem-ridden power sector has been fixed at around Tk 60.00 billion or 23 per cent of the total ADP. The size of new ADP is also around 23 per cent up from the revised ADP of the outgoing fiscal. The new ADP was finalised at a meeting of the planning commission on May 25.

Finance and planning adviser Mirza Azizul Islam presided over the meeting and approved the size that is only Tk 5.0 billion higher than the original size of ADP for the outgoing fiscal. The original ADP for fiscal 2006-07 was projected at Tk 260.00 billion by the immediate past political regime from the revised ADP of Tk 215.00 billion in fiscal 2005-06. Economists criticised the size of ADP of the outgoing fiscal saying that the projection was ambitious and prepared in a manner to get political advantage in the year of election.

The CG at a meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) last month slashed the ADP for the outgoing fiscal by around 17 per cent due to inadequate mobilisation of both internal and external resources. The NEC is expected to meet shortly to approve the new ADP. Under the new ADP, the projection of the local and foreign resources is expected to be Tk 137.00 billion and Tk 128.00 billion or 51.70 per cent and 49.30 per cent respectively.

Compared to the projected foreign resource in the outgoing ADP, foreign contribution in the new ADP is likely to increase by almost five pert cent. The amount of local and foreign resources was projected at 56 per cent and 44 per cent in the original ADP of fiscal 2006-07 fiscal that is likely to be recorded as the most poor performing year in terms of ADP implementation. In the first nine months of the fiscal, the implementation rate of the ADP has been recorded at less than 40 per cent.
Generally during the last several years, the implementing agencies could achieve around 90-95 per cent success record of the revised ADP.