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Five large road transport projects will alone eat up nearly half the sub-sector’s outlay, which officials say will affect the implementation of other projects in the next fiscal year (FY).
The road transport sub-sector has a total of 171 projects.
The Planning Commission (PC) proposed Tk 160.22 billion funds, or 48 per cent of the total Tk 337.24 billion outlay for the transport sector, in the upcoming Annual Development Programme (ADP) for the five projects.
According to the proposed allocation, the five ongoing projects will get Tk 160.22 billion funds while the remaining 166 will get only Tk 177.03 billion in the upcoming ADP.
Experts said this type of allocation could affect the execution of other projects due to their fund shortage in the fiscal year, 2019-20.
Among the five, the construction of metro rail line-6 from Uttara to Motijheel is going to get the highest Tk 72.13 billion allocation, followed by the Padma bridge project’s Tk 53.71 billion.
Besides, the Karnaphuli tunnel construction project in Chittagong will get Tk 13.50 billion, SASEC-II (road construction from Hatikamrul-Rangpur) project Tk 10.50 billion, and the Dhaka elevated expressway project Tk 10.38 billion funds.
In the current fiscal, these projects received Tk 94.74 billion funds-over one-third of the total Tk 261.59 billion allocation-for the 194 ongoing projects.
A senior Commission official said they had been forced to allocate inadequate money to some priority projects in the upcoming fiscal since the mega projects would get the lion’s share.
“We’ve got Tk 337.24 billion ceiling for funds from the ministry of finance (MoF) to allocate against 171 total ongoing projects in the FY2020. But implementing agencies for the large projects have sought half the money,” he said.
“If we give adequate fund allocation to other projects, some Tk 384.61 billion will be required. But the Finance Ministry has allocated Tk 337.24 billion for other schemes,” the official said.
The implementation of some projects, which asked for higher funds than the proposed allocations, could be delayed, feared the Commission official.
source (FE)
