The government has made major cuts in the education and health sectors in the annual development programme (ADP) budget for this fiscal year.
The National Economic Council yesterday revised the ADP and slashed this fiscal year’s development budget by 6.84 percent from the original outlay. The decision came at an NEC meeting at its conference room in Dhaka’s Agargaon, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. The ADP for fiscal year 2023-24 has been reduced by Tk 18,000 crore to Tk 245,000 crore, according to the documents presented at the meeting, which was the first for the current government.
Documents also show that the development budget for education and health, two vital sectors, have been trimmed by 42 percent and 25.53 percent respectively.
The education sector’s allocation has been cut to Tk 17,229 crore from Tk 29,889 crore while the health sector’s allocation has been decreased to Tk 12,066 crore from Tk 16,204 crore.
After the revision, education and health sectors are getting 7 percent and 4.83 percent allocations of the total development budget.
Talking about the trimming of the allocations to the education and health sectors, Planning Minister Abdus Salam said: “There are questions regarding the abilities of some ministries who cannot fully spend the budgets allocated for them. We did not leave out the education sector [from priorities]. Rather, we have told them to increase their capacity to spend the budgets allocated for them.”
The minister said they have taken steps so that the money that was reduced from the sector’s budget will be used in other sectors.
Salam said the government have increased the allocations for the transport and communication and energy sectors as they have the ability to spend the allocated money.
The transport and communication sector got the highest allocation of Tk 63,263 crore (25.82 percent), the power and energy sector Tk 37,897 crore (15.47 percent) and housing and community facilities Tk 28,002 crore (11.43 percent).
The planning minister also said the government has enough money and the health, education, energy and communication sectors are vital for the country.
A sector will get allocations keeping in mind how much money it can spend, Salam said.
Planning Division Senior Secretary Satyajit Karmakar said that there should be a balance between the ADP allocation for education, health, transport, energy and local government sectors.
He said that there are some inconsistencies in resource allocation and those will be fixed in the ninth Five Year Plan.
Satyajit said the prime minister yesterday instructed that a committee under the cabinet secretary work to improve the capacity and skills of the officials.
The Economic Relations Division was asked to assess the guidelines of the development partners to ease the disbursement of foreign loans, he added.
The government has made lesser allocations for the education and health sectors than what is projected in the eighth Five Year Plan that is being implemented from fiscal years 2020-21 to 2024-25.
For instance, the health sector got a 6.16 percent ADP allocation this fiscal year against the projection of 11.1 percent, while the education sector received a 13.38 percent allocation against the projection of 16.5 percent.