The approval was given at a meeting of the Ecnec with Finance and Planning Minister M Saifur Rahman in the chair.

Briefing newsmen, Saifur Rahman said of the projects approved, the government would provide Tk 2,389 crore, while Danida and China will give Tk 402 crore.

Earlier, the Tk 822.83 crore project for rehabilitation, renovation and augmentation of grid system (RRAGS-phase-2) witnessed objections for irregularities.

"In the first-phase, officials purchased some 41 vehicles without taking permission from the authorities concerned," a highly placed source in the Planning Division said.

"These officials were rebuked at the last pre-Ecnec meeting, which also asked to take necessary legal actions against those persons responsible for these irregularities," the source added.

Projects under the Communi-cations and Power Ministries dominated the meeting. Out of Tk 2791 crore, Tk 2621.59 crore will be spent on four projects of these two ministries.

Of which, Tk 1,600 crore will be spent only for developing roads in district level and Tk 70 crore for construction of a bridge on the Shitalakkhya river.

The Ecnec also approved Tk 128.61 crore project for commissioning of Joydevpur-Kabirpur-Tangail 132 KV distribution line.

The finance minister said for improving the agriculture sector, the Ecnec approved three projects worth Tk 132.68 crore.

He said under these projects, seed production and distribution capacity of the Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) will be enhanced.

"We depend too much on imported seeds," the minister said adding that this could be reduced only by enhancing our capacity.

In social welfare sector, one project worth Tk 36.26 crore was also approved by Ecnec for establishing 100-bed Zia Heart Foundation Hospital and Research Centre in Dinajpur.

UNB adds: The country's economic growth (GDP) will stand at around 6 percent in the outgoing fiscal year (2004-05) as emerging new sectors have been taken into national accounts recently, Saifur also told the press after the Ecnec meeting.

"The GDP growth will increase with the development activities the government now pursuing to overcome the losses from the recurring floods," he said in reply to a question.

The government last week approved a GDP growth of 6.27 percent for the fiscal 2003-04 as per the new calculation method that followed a new base-year (1995-96) as well as incorporated the contributions of agriculture and emerging services sector, including construction and transport sectors.

According to the earlier method of estimates, the GDP growth was 5.5 percent in the fiscal 2003-04 while development partners estimated it to be less than 5.5 percent in the current fiscal.

Replying to a question, Saifur made it clear that government employees would be able to draw salaries as per the new pay scale from today.

He said the employees would prepare their individual salary bills as per provision of the new pay scale and draw accordingly.

However, the government will take back the additional amount from August this year from their salaries if they drew beyond the provision of the new pay scale, he said.

There were apprehensions that the government employees would not be able to draw their salaries as per the new pay scale from June.

Replying to another question, the minister alleged that a section of the press miss-reported that the government diverted development funds from education, health and agriculture sectors to roads and communications sectors for pro-election expenditure.

He clarified that the funds were transferred because the allocated funds remained unutilised in the existing sectors.