Bangladesh ADP size unchanged, more funds from internal resources

The National Economic Council (NEC) has decided to keep the size of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) unchanged but tweaked the allocations to reduce foreign aid dependency.

In a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheik Hasina on Tuesday, the ADP allocation was kept at Tk 1.107 trillion for 2016-17 fiscal.

Tk 707 billion will come from domestic resources and Tk 400 billion is stipulated from foreign funds.

The NEC earlier decided to downsize the ADP by around TK 65 billion as part of the adjustment process.

“Tk 70 billion has been truncated from foreign aid projection which has been met up with internal resources. So, the ADP size remained the same,” Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal told reporters.

“Gulshan cafe attack put an adverse impact on ADP at the beginning of the fiscal. But, since our revenue income is satisfactory, government allocation has been increased.

"The prime minister decided to allocate more money from the government exchequer.

“Now the (ADP) implementation phase is going smoothly, so the expenditure from the state fund will not be a problem,” he also said.

In current ADP, the self-financing projects of the autonomous bodies are worth Tk 85.96 billion after a reduction of Tk 40.5 billion.

About Padma Bridge expenditure, the planning minister said, “It’s our dream project. The amount of money the project authorities will spend will be the allocation for the project.”

Some 303 projects have been added to the revised ADP and the number of projects now is 1,581. There were 1,278 projects in the original ADP.

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