Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has ordered the speedy completion of foreign aid and grant projects to accelerate the pace of development of the country. He directed the relevant authorities of all ministries and departments to make extra efforts for this.

The Prime Minister gave this order while presiding over the meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) at the NEC conference room in the capital’s Sherebangla Nagar today. NEC has approved ADP of Rs 2.65 lakh crore for the next financial year (2024-25).

During the press briefing after the meeting, Planning Department Senior Secretary Satyajit Karmakar said that the Prime Minister directed the concerned authorities to redeploy project managers and other officials in their specialized areas after training in the respective fields.

During the briefing, Minister of Planning Major General (retd.) Abdus Salam, State Minister for Planning. Shahiduzzaman Government, Planning Commission members and concerned secretaries were present.

Satyajit said that instead of taking up small projects, the Prime Minister suggested taking up district-wise projects and thus appointing district-level officials to supervise those projects.

Calling for the creation of a pool of project managers, Sheikh Hasina once again laid emphasis on providing necessary training to the project managers and officers who lack training.

In order to speed up the implementation rate of foreign aided projects, the Prime Minister asked the concerned ministries and departments to inform each other about the implementation progress of the aided projects every three months.The Prime Minister directed the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Department (IMED) to take necessary steps to bring the institutions that conduct feasibility studies under a registration process. So that qualitative feasibility studies can be done in various fields.

Planning Minister Abdus Salam said that all the proposals of the extended meeting held on May 7 were approved in the NEC meeting. He also said that since most of the projects are taken upazila-wise, there is a lack of coordination in some cases. In the meeting it was proposed to take up the district wise project and it was positively discussed in the NEC meeting.

Minister of State for Planning. Shahiduzzaman government expressed the hope that all concerned will turn the government’s efforts into reality to build the ‘Smart Bangladesh’ of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s dream.