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Reduced ADP for 2008-09

Implementation rate must improve
HE new ADP marks a departure from the pattern of ambitious development programs that we ended up revising year after year and yet not implementing even the whittled down physical targets of development. While in the past, financial targets got somewhat met with hurried low quality expenditure at the fag end of the year, the end results would invariably fall far short of the targets. This is glaringly exemplified by hundreds of unfinished bridges and culverts across the country as depicted lately in the pictorial news report in a prominent Bangla daily.
What we see is a reality check in regard to the new approach. The size of the new ADP is I k 25.600 crore, a good I k 900 crore lower than original ADP, but Tk 3,100 crore higher than that of I the revised ADP of the outgoing fiscal 2007-08. The implementation rate of the revised ADP of last year was 55 percent, the lowest recorded so far. Usually, in the years past, between 85 and 95 percent of the revised ADPs were shown implemented.
The lowest implementation figure for the last ADP regrettable as it is, reflecting chronic deficiencies in the implementation machinery', has nonetheless a positive feature to it, of no mean significance. Set against the backdrop of anticorruption drive, tough financial management policies and a general atmosphere of self-imposed caution, the potentially corrupt people desisted from malpractice and abuse of power this year. That might well have prompted conservative utilisation of ADP funds in the outgoing year.
But the fact remains that investment in future which the ADP signifies is only one-fourth of the allocations made in the revenue budget that has mostly to do with overhead costs like salaries, benefits and other recurrent and routine expenses. This imbalance together with the fact that the external dependence of the ADP has increased denoting to that extent an increase in the debt burden are concerns that would need to be addressed through a definitive improvement in the macro-economic indicators. The 57 percent of the ADP will be funded through mobilisation of internal resources, confined hopefully, to an increase in revenue earning rather than resorting to bank borrowing.
There are some good features in the new ADP. In terms of allocations, highest priority is given to agriculture, water resources and rural development followed by power, energy' and education sectors, in that order. Nearly Tk 3000 crore has been allocated to backward regions. But we wish the allocation to food security were more than Tk 123 crore. The slight reduction in the lump grants is a positive feature. Under the agriculture, water resources and rural development heads, adequate attention ought to be paid to subsidies, social safety programs and infrastructure building for productivity.
Given the electoral roadmap this government will have six months of the ADP to set it firmly on course to fuller implementation. It would be a strategic step in the right direction if the government were to restructure and empower the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division (1MED) of the Planning Ministry as an oversight body for the ADP implementation process.