The interim government is likely to revise downward the annual development programme of Bangladesh by around Tk 50,000 crore to lower the budget deficit at around 4 per cent in the current FY25.
Officials said that the planning commission next week would begin consultation with the implementing ministries and divisions as part of the process of trimming the annual development programme fixed at Tk 2,65,000 crore in May by the immediate past political regime.
Ousted amid a student-led mass uprising on August 5, the ruling Awami League-led regime also projected the budget deficit at 4.6 per cent of the gross domestic product while announcing the national budget for 2024鈥�25 in June.
Planning adviser Wahiduddin Mahmud, however, remarked that it would be premature at the moment to cast new projections on the annual development programme and the budget deficit for FY25.
Responding to a text message, he told 抖阴精品 on Monday that the government was in a process of reviewing the development projects while giving priority to the foreign-funded projects.
Projects having potential for generating employment would also get priority, he said.
Growing unemployment has been identified by many analysts as a major reason for the student-led movement for quota reform in government jobs that eventually led to a mass uprising, paving the way for the Professor Muhammad Yunus鈥檚 interim government to assume power in a precarious economic situation plagued by dollar shortages, widespread corruption, dysfunctional banking sector and low revenue income.
The planning adviser also said that they would not hesitate to curtail or even entirely abandon the politically-motivated projects depending on the stage of their implementation.
According to the planning ministry鈥檚 Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division, currently the implementation of 1,352 projects is going on under the FY25 annual development programme with around 42 per cent allocations given for some 405 projects of the local government division, power division, roads and highways division, and railways ministry.
But many government officials have identified a considerable number of these projects as politically motivated and economically unviable.聽聽聽聽聽
One of these undertakings is the ongoing project for constructing the Rupsa power plant in Khulna at a cost of Tk 8,000 crore which is unlikely to go on power generation near future due to a lack of gas supply.
鈥楩or whose benefits has this project been taken by the past political regime?鈥� asked power and energy adviser Fouzul Kabir Khan.
Also the adviser for road transport and bridges, and railway ministries, Kabir Khan, voiced criticism for the Padma rail-link project being implemented at Tk 39,246 crore.
Questioning people鈥檚 benefits and the issue of recovery of the loan taken out for the project, he would discuss the matter with the planning adviser, he said.
The current annual development programme, according to planning ministry officials, also includes 357 projects undertaken 6鈥�10 years back due to repeated extensions of time and cost with 36 of them being more than 10 years old.
Besides, 45.5 per cent of the projects in the current annual development programme have already been revised 1鈥�4 times with the total projects with time extension increased to 518 in FY25 from 429 in FY24.
Over the past 15 years, the immediate past political regime abused the annual development programme to distribute public fund to cronies and party activists, said the government officials.
On Monday, finance adviser Salehuddin Ahmed iterated the interim government鈥檚 stance to stop waste of the public money on the pretext of development projects.
Responding positively to a question on a possible early revision of the FY25 budget, the finance adviser said that the planning commission would do the major work for the early revision.
