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Development budget will not be revised down

Rejaul Karim Byron
The development budget is unlikely to be revised down this fiscal year despite the knowledge that a big chunk remains unused every year.
"So what we can't spend the amount? It will stay at the state coffer - no one will be able to make away with it," Planning Minsiter AHM Mustafa Kamal told The Daily Star last week.
In fiscal 2017-18, Tk 155,931 crore has earmarked for the annual development programme, Tk 95,515 crore of which would come from the government's own fund andTk 60,416 crore from foreign aid.
Of the sum, 33.35 percent have been expended in the first seven months of the fiscal year.
In the draft proposal for revised ADP that will be placed before the National Economic Council on Tuesday, a cut of Tk 4,950 crore from the foreign aid component would be presented.
At a meeting last week with the finance division and other concerned ministries about ADP revision, the planning ministry proposed bumping up the government own fund by the same amount as the foreign aid cut.
But the finance division did not get on board with the proposal, saying the ministries and divisions would not be able to spend the amount within the timeframe any way, said an official present at the meeting.
The planning ministry will now ask
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who will preside over the NEC meeting, to increase the government's fund and keep the ADP size as same.
The same chain of events took place last year too: in the revised ADP, the budget size remained intact but the government's own fund component was raised by the same amount as a slash in foreign aid.
In the end, Tk 3,435 crore of the Tk 110,700 crore-budget remained unused.
In the first seven months of the fiscal year, 30.02 percent of the government's own fund has been used, which is lower than in previous fiscal year, when 36.63 percent was utilised, according to statistics from the Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Division.
In contrast, foreign aid utilisation stood at 38.63 percent, which was 26.52 percent a year earlier.
Asked about the cut in foreign aid despite better implementation rate this year, a finance ministry official said: "The foreign aid allocation is very ambitious this year.”
Though the government is yet to cross the $4 billion mark in terms of utilisation of foreign aid in a fiscal year, it now believes that its efficiency in utilising foreign aid has increased sufficiently over the last several years.
In the last fiscal year, the country saw the highest utilisation of foreign funds -$3.56 billion - in development projects.
The Economic Relations Division is expecting the figure to graze $6 billion this year, said its officials.
Even if $6 billion is spent, more than $1 billion or about Tk 10,000 crore will remain unused.
In November, the ERD reviewed progress in the implementation of 63 ongoing foreign-funded projects involving a total of Tk 45,442 crore and found that the progress of 28 of them was unsatisfactory.
Of the 28 sluggish projects, 13 got allocations ofTk 6,736 crore in foreign aid. But the ministries and divisions concerned may not be able to use even Tk 3,000 crore in the projects this fiscal year, the ERD pointed out.
At the end of the year the amount of unutilised aid would increase further because loan agreement for a host of mega projects like the Padma Rail Link is yet to be signed.