Development budget to become a casualty of stimulus packages

The annual development programme (ADP) is set to become a big casualty of the resource reshuffling that the government is set to deploy to bankroll the massive stimulus packages announced to jumpstart the economy once the rogue coronavirus has been tamed.

Over the years, the government has always increased the size of the development budget by about 20 per cent from the outgoing year.

But the ADP that the Planning Minister MA Mannan would be finalising today for fiscal 2020-21 would be 6.33 per cent higher than this year's revised development budget at Tk 205,145 crore.

To accommodate the massive spending needing in the immediate future, the government has already suspended financing to all low priority projects.

But allocation for the large projects would not be affected, however, in the next fiscal year. Some Tk 50,000 crore to this end.

The Padma Bridge project would get Tk 5,000 crore, Metro Rail project Tk 4,200 crore, Rooppur nuclear power plant Tk 1,582 crore, Payra seaport Tk 700 crore, Karnaphuli river tunnel Tk 500 crore, Padma Rail Link Tk 3,735 crore, Bangabandhu Rail bridge project Tk 2,744 crore and rail track from Dohazari to Gundum project Tk 1,500 crore. 

"The health and agriculture sectors would get priority in the next ADP," Mannan told The Daily Star yesterday.

The pandemic has uncovered the shortcomings in the health sector and the government has been able to avoid a major food crisis because of the agriculture sector, he said.

So the two sectors warrant the utmost attention.

After finalisation, the ADP would be sent to the National Economic Council for approval.

Because of the social distancing being enforced since March 26 to stop the spread of the deadly bug, it is not clear whether the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council chaired by the prime minister would meet, as would have been the case under normal circumstances, to approve the ADP.

The prime minister may approve the ADP through an executive order and thereafter it would be passed in parliament. Alternatively, the prime minister and some key ministers may sit and give the consent.

"We will send the proposal and the government will decide. The situation is different this time," said Mannan.

The changing situation also compelled the planning minister to decide to finalise the ADP on a limited scale.

Only a few secretaries such as those from the finance and planning ministries and the Economic Relations Division and some members of the planning commission would be present at today's meeting, whereas all secretaries would be present on such an important meeting in previous years.

At the meeting, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics may present the provisional estimate of the gross domestic product (GDP) for this fiscal year. The GDP growth would be 5.5 per cent, down from the 8.2 per cent hoped for at the beginning of the fiscal year and higher than the projections made by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The ADB forecasted that the Bangladesh economy would grow at 3.8 per cent and the WB between 2 per cent and 3 per cent.