The National Economic Council (NEC) yesterday approved a Tk 1,92,921 crore Revised Annual Development Programme (RADP) for the current fiscal year giving the highest priority to the transport sector. The approval came from a meeting of the NEC held at its conference room in the city’s Sher-e-Banglanagar area with NEC Chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, Planning Minister MA Mannan said that incorporating Tk 8,277.56 crore funding against 103 projects of the autonomous bodies and corporations, the overall RADP size stood at Tk 2,01,198.56 crore. But, excluding the fund of the autonomous bodies and the corporations, the size of the original RADP stood at Tk 1,92,921 crore. Of the amount, Tk 1,30,921 crore would come from the local sources while the rest Tk 62,000 crore from foreign sources.

Mannan said the total number of projects under the RADP now stands at 1,846 including 1,597 investment projects, 143 technical assistance projects and one project from the JDCF. The original ADP size for the current fiscal year was Tk 2,02,721 crore and Tk 9,800 crore was downsized from the project assistance portion in the revised ADP.

According to the Planning Commission, the transport sector received the highest RADP allocation of Tk 47,432 crore (24.59 per cent) followed by physical planning, water supply and housing sector Tk 26,840 crore (13.91 per cent), Power sector Tk 23,632 crore (12.25 per cent), Education and religious sector Tk 20,424 crore (10.59 per cent), science and ICT sector Tk 16,791 crore (8.70 per cent), rural development and rural institution sector Tk 15,755 crore (8.17 per cent), Health, nutrition, population and family welfare sector Tk 10,109 crore (5.24 per cent), agriculture sector Tk 6,609 crore (3.43 per cent), water sector Tk 6,368 crore (3.30 per cent) and public administration sector Tk 5,147 crore (2.67 per cent).