Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Tuesday asked the authorities concerned to stop sand lifting from near the bridges on rivers across the country. She came up with this instruction while addressing the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) meeting held at the NEC Conference Room in the city’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area.
Besides, the premier has asked the Road Transport and Bridges ministry to sell all bailey bridges through auction which are not being used for a long time or set them up at other places, quoting Prime Minister, planning minister told reporters after the ECNEC meeting. The ECNEC has approved seven projects at an overall estimated cost of Tk 11, 042.14 crore with its Chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair, the minister said.
To ensure safe and pure water across the rural areas, the ECNEC has approved Tk 8,850.74 crore to install large numbers of tube wells, deep and non deep tube wells and pumps tube for supplying water to the people, he also said. The Department of Public Health and Engineering under the Local Government Division will implement the project by June 2025.
The main activities of the project are setting up of some 90636 non deep tube wells and 1,23,877 deep tube wells, installation of some 2,06,664 submersible pumps and non-deep tube wells and 1,70,222 submersible pumps and deep tube wells with reservoirs, 3,379 ring wells, 3,210 rain water harvesting units, rolling out of some 491 rural piped water supply schemes, erecting of some 320 solar PSF, some 29570 arsenic iron removal plants and some 8838 community based water supply units.
The other approved projects are – Replacing the existing Bailey and RCC Bridges (Dhaka Zone) at narrow and important points with Tk 1190.78 crore, Establishment of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Novo Theatre, Barishal with Tk 412 crore and Extension of Narsingdi BSCIC Industrial Estate, 1st revised, with an additional cost of Tk 38.56 crore, Increasing the road embankment height, pavement reconstruction and widening at Singra portion on Singra-Gurudaspur-Chatmohar road with an expense of Tk 135.71 crore, Upgrading Puthia-Baghmara Highway into due standard and width with Tk 130.83 crore and Some 3.765 kilometers River Bank embankment permanent protection work to protect the Doarika Bridge from the erosion of River Sugandha with Tk 283.52 crore.
ADP IMPLEMENTATION
About the Annual Development Programme (ADP) implementation for the July-December period of the current fiscal year, MA Mannan said the executing agencies could spend Tk 56,712.57 crore during the first six months of current fiscal with an implementation rate of 26.36 percent. The ADP implementation rate during the July-December period of the last fiscal year was 27.45 percent with an expenditure of Taka 49,644.80 crore.
The planning minister said the government is not at all worried about the implementation status of the ADP as the implementing agencies could spend more amount in the current fiscal compared to the previous fiscal.
