The revised ADP was approved by the National Economic Council (NEC) at a meeting yesterday, chaired by Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed.

The NEC also extended the tenure of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) by a year until June 2008.

The biggest losers in the ADP cut are the communications sector with 33 percent of its allocation slashed, agriculture 30 percent, health five percent, education and religion sector 24 percent and transport sector losing 10 percent of allocation.

The rural development and institution sector was given an additional 10 percent allocation in the revised ADP. To this end, block allocation for city corporations, zila parishads, paurasabhas, upazila and union parishads has been increased by Tk 210 crore to Tk 874 crore.

Th original ADP allocation is Tk 26,000 crore comprising Tk 14,682 crore local resources and Tk 11,318 crore foreign resources.

Local resources have been cut down by 22 percent to Tk 11,480 crore while foreign resources have been slashed by 11 percent to Tk 10,120 crore, of which Tk 2,070 crore will be available from the World Bank's development support credit.

"Transport, power, rural development, health and education are the priorities in this ADP," Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam told reporters after the NEC meeting.

According to a planning ministry report at the meeting, rural development got 15.87 percent allocation in the revised ADP, transport 13.85 percent, education and religion 13.55 percent, electricity 12.86 percent, and health 11 percent.

In the original ADP, sectoral block allocation was Tk 3,025 crore but no such allocation was kept in the revised ADP.

But a special block allocation of Tk 230 crore has been kept in the revised ADP, which would fund 171 unapproved projects that until now have got no funds.

The number of unapproved projects in the original ADP was 429.

There were 886 projects in the original ADP while the revised ADP contains 1,092 projects.

Only 32 percent of the original ADP involving Tk 8,267 crore was implemented in the first eight months of the current fiscal year. During the corresponding period of last fiscal year, 37 percent of the original ADP had been implemented.