The Planning Commission on Monday finalised the annual development programme (ADP) involving Tk 2.05 trillion (205,145 crore) for the next 2020-21 fiscal year, reports UNB.

The draft ADP got its approval from the extended meeting of the Planning Commission held at the conference room of the National Economic Council (NEC) with Planning Minister MA Mannan in the chair.

The Planning Ministry sought a date from the Prime Minister office to hold the NEC meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair to give the final approval to the ADP.

According to sources at the Planning Ministry, there might not be any NEC meeting this year due to social-distancing issue.

If there is no NEC meeting, they said, he Planning Ministry will send a summary to the Prime Minister for the final approval and she can approve it exercising her executive power.

An amount of Tk 94.66 billion allocation is expected to be there for autonomous entities, raising the total ADP to Tk 2146.11 billion, they added.

According to the official sources, transport, education, health and agriculture will get importance in the ADP this time.

They said the government will provide Tk 1.34 trillion from its own fund while foreign aid will be Tk 705.01 billion.

The total number of projects in the next year’s ADP will be 1,847 with the projects of autonomous entities and it will be 1,588 without autonomous bodies.

The number of projects in the outgoing fiscal is 1,744 without the projects of autonomous entities.

The transport sector will get Tk 521.00 billion while power sector Tk 248.00 billion, education Tk 234.00 billion, health sector Tk 130.33 billion and agriculture Tk 84.24 billion, according to the officials.

The size of ADP for the current fiscal (2019-20) is Tk 2.03 trillion, but later it was revised to Tk 1.93 trillion.

The sources said the number of development projects in the ADP has been downsized due to the COVID-19 as many of the ongoing projects could not be finished because of government holidays which started on March 26 last.