Planning ministry has decided to increase supervision on project directors of annual development programme in a bid to expedite the implementation of development projects, officials said. Planning minister AHM Mustafa Kamal will hold project supervision meetings with project directors every two months to review the ADP implementation status and provide possible solutions of problems that PDs face in executing projects, they said.
They said that the ministry was supposed to arrange such meetings regularly, but it took months to arrange such meetings in the current fiscal year.
At a meeting with secretaries of ministries and divisions, and project directors held on Thursday, the planning minister also instructed the line ministries not to change PDs and other important officials of projects without approval of the committee concerned.
The government formed a committee, headed by planning minister, to consider the proposals of changing the project directors before completion of projects or within three years of their appointments.
But in most cases, PDs are frequently transferred without approval of the committee which has been a major problem in implementation of ADP, officials said.
Planning ministry organised the meeting at ECNEC conference room, first its kind in the FY 2014-15, to evaluate the ADP implementation status up to November, find out the reasons and problems behind the poor performance and the possible solutions.
At the meeting, Kamal instructed PDs to ensure full implementation of Tk 80,000 crore ADP adopted for the current fiscal year.
The allocation from slow-progress projects would be diverted to projects with better performance, a high official who attended the meeting told New Age quoting the minister.
The ministry is also planning to recognise the best performing project directors in a bid to encourage speedy implementation of development projects, he said.
PDs who will be able to execute the highest portion of development projects or utilize a certain level of
allocation set by the ministry may be awarded for each quarter of the fiscal year, he added.
Officials said that progress in ADP implementation was very unsatisfactory till July-October period of the current fiscal year which was only 13 per cent of total allocation, worst in the same period of the last six fiscal years.
But ADP implementation status gained momentum in November and stood at around 21 per cent of total allocation for the entire fiscal year, they said.
At the meeting, PDs said that problems in land acquisition, delay in appointment of officials and frequent transfers, complexities in procurement and long procedure in disbursement of foreign funds were the main reasons behind delay in ADP implementation.
-With New Age input
