Direct allocation for local government bodies has been below two percent of the total annual budget ouday for the last five fiscal years, which experts said is inadequate for the development projects meant for the grassroots.

They said at a discussion yesterday that the allocations for grassroots institutions were not sufficient to carry out various works by the elected representatives of the local government bodies such as union parishad, upazila and municipality.

The budgetary allocations are spent at grassroots levels through different government bodies and ministries but elected representatives' command over various expenditures is yet to be established, the speakers said at the discussion in Dhaka.

“The national government will not be effective unless financial ability of local government bodies is enhanced,”

said Shamim-Al-Raji, secretary general of Municipal Association of Bangladesh.

“If everything remains centralised, the sufferings of the people at local level will not ease,” he said.

A platform of 35 nongovernmental organisations, Governance Advocacy Forum organised the discussion at National Press Club, focusing on increased allocations for local government bodies in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

AKM Mozammel Huq, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on land ministry, MM Akash, a professor of economics department at Dhaka University, also spoke at the programme attended by elected representatives of different local governmentbodies.

“The actual allocations for local government institutions should increase based on specific work plans for establishing effective and powerful

grassroots bodies,” said MM Akash.

He said such allocations rose to Tk 1,630 crore in the current fiscal year fromTk 1,020 crore a year ago.

“However these allocations have never crossed two percent of total budgetary ouday since fiscal 2004-05," he said, adding that the highest allotment was in fiscal 2006-07 at 1.95 percent.

In the current fiscal year, the direct allocations to local government bodies as a whole stand at 1.43 percent, he said.

The Dhaka University teacher said the present government promised to strengthen the local government bodies and make them the centre of local development through decentralisation, but the promises were not materialised in the last 15 months.

AKM Mozammel Huq said the allocations for the grassroots bodies should go up.

"At least 20 percent of the total budgetary allocations should be for the local government bodies," he said.