7th Five Year Plan seeks separate fund for ADP
UNB
The 7th Five Year Plan (FY16-FY20) has suggested setting aside a separate fund in the Annual Development Programme (ADP) for infrastructure development, emphasising on technical education and giving greater accessibility to impoverished regions to address regional disparities, reports UNB.
The Plan, approved on Tuesday, also recommended that the additional fund could be of some reasonable percentage of overall ADP expenditure, but this would be in addition to the other regular ADP components, said an official at the General Economics Division (GED) of the Planning Commission.
The official said the Plan highlighted that the regions lagging behind could be supported with skill development, such as, establishing technical and vocational institutes. Besides, regions like Rangpur, Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal may be preferred destinations for such investments with the proposed fund.
To address regional disparity issues, the Plan suggests narrowing infrastructure gaps since improvement of infrastructure facilities is one of the key interventions that can open the door of economic opportunities in the impoverished districts, while manufacturing activities need to be promoted there. Such regions should also get priority while setting up special economic zones.
Besides, the official said, the Plan advocated for expanding agriculture and rural economic activities even though the share of agriculture in GDP is declining over time, but, still this is the focal point of the rural economy, creating opportunities for international migration as it has been noted that the flow of remittance earnings is low towards impoverished districts, causing further backwardness.
Apart from that, the resilience of adverse environmental and climate change shocks could be built. Since Bangladesh has recently got some 111 former Indian enclaves as an outcome of the LBA signed with India, the Plan suggested that the population of these areas need to be mainstreamed with the wider national economy by developing physical infrastructures, including educational and health facilities.
Earlier on Tuesday, the National Economic Council (NEC) approved the 7th Five Year Plan (FY2016-FY2020) of Bangladesh, aiming to accelerate employment generation and reducing poverty through substantially increasing FDI inflow and maintaining a growth rate of 7.4 per cent on average over the five-year period.
