FROM PAGE B1

At a minimum, the full budget should be outlined before the newly elected government assumes office, he said at the press briefing.

Mahmud also spoke about the projects approved at yesterday’s meeting.

Some 11 projects involving Tk 9,362 crore got approval. Of those, five are new, three saw revisions with a rise in cost, while three others were granted deadline extensions without an increase in cost.

Of those, the “Environmentally Sustainable Water Supply” project, launched in 2014 by Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority, got a time extension. The project cost rose to Tk 13,824 crore, up by over Tk 2,800 crore.

Along with cost overruns, the project has faced repeated delays, raising concerns.

Mahmud said they discussed the issue of cost spiral and delays, and gave the nod to the time extension on condition that the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) conduct a study.

“The aim is to identify why the project has been delayed, what irregularities occurred, and why revisions and cost hikes are so frequent, so that lessons can be applied to future projects,” the planning adviser said.

He said irregularities and poor planning might be the reasons. “Otherwise, completion should not take this long. There also seems to be a lack of coordination,” he said.

Apart from this, there are some other issues.

Depreciation of the taka against the dollar, rising land acquisition costs, expansion of project areas, and a rise in interest payments have contributed to the cost overrun, as per the project documents.

The devaluation of taka solely increased the project cost by around 42 percent or Tk 1,186 crore.

When the government approved the project in September 2013, each US dollar was at Tk 82. The exchange rate has now risen to around Tk 120.