The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) on Sunday approved a Tk 4,323.47 crore Resilient Infrastructure for Adaptation and Vulnerability Reduction Project (RIVER) in a bid to reduce flood risks of the sudden flood-prone communities and people living along the river banks.
The approval came from a meeting of the ECNEC, with its Chairperson and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair, held at the NEC Conference Room in the city's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area.
Briefing reporters after the meeting, State Minister for Planning Shamsul Alam informed that the day's meeting approved a total of eight projects with an overall estimated cost of Tk 12,167.15 crore.
"Of the total project cost, Tk 3,097.91 crore will come from the government of Bangladesh (GoB) portion, Tk 156.47 crore from the concerned organisation's fund while the lion share of Tk 8,912.77 crore from project assistance," he added.
Planning Division Secretary Satyajit Karmaker, planning commission members and secretaries concerned were present at the briefing.
Of the approved eight projects, six are new while two others are revised ones.
Besides, the meeting also gave approval for the time extension of four projects without raising the cost of those.
The Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) under the Local Government Division will implement the RIVER project by June 2028. Of the total project cost of Tk 4,323.47 crore, Tk 48.47 crore will come from the government of Bangladesh portion while the rest of Tk 4,275 crore as project assistance from IDA of the World Bank.
Once the project is implemented, it would also help to enhance the capacity of flood-prone communities in disaster preparedness and making responses. The project will be implemented in 78 upazilas under 14 districts.
The main project operations include the construction of some 500 primary schools cum flood shelters, setting up some 100 solar-powered small grids, alleviating the height of some 250 fields and improvement of 275km flood shelter connecting road, construction of 500-metre bridge, 1,330-metre culverts, development of 110km community infrastructure connecting road, establishment of 15 landing stages, installation of solar lights on some 6,600 roads and installation of some 1,400 lightning prevention machines.
At the very outset of the meeting, the state minister said a brief on the condition of the country's economy was presented before the ECNEC.
He said the meeting was apprised that the macroeconomic stability and balance have remained intact due to the timely decisions, strategies and policies of the government under the courageous and planned leadership of the prime minister despite facing many adversities.
Shamsul Alam said the general point-to-point inflation is on a downtrend since September last due to the financial assistance provided to the helpless people and also for enhanced domestic production.
Besides, he said the inward remittance flow has increased due to the stimulus packages and timely policies and strategies of the government, the import cost has reduced while the export earnings have increased which has also helped increase the foreign currency reserves.
Although the government's borrowings to meet the subsidies have increased, the state minister said the private sector credit growth in January was 13 per cent which was 11 per cent in January last year.
"On the whole, the domestic credit growth has increased which has helped the economy make a turnaround. The deficit in the current account balance during this July-January period has also declined to $5 billion from $10 billion in the same period of last year due to the control in import cost or reduction in overall expenditure," he added.
The other projects approved in the meeting are - South-Western Transmission Grid Expansion, first revised with an additional cost of Tk 1,048.47 crore, Promoting Gender Responsive Enterprise Development and TVET Systems (ProGRESS) with Tk 128.61 crore, customs modernisation and infrastructure development with Tk 1,686.47 crore, Urban Resilience Project (URP): Project Coordination and Monitoring Unit (PCMU), third revised with a cost cut of Tk 12.44 crore, South Chattogram Regional Development (SCRD) project with Tk 3,644.92 crore, rural infrastructures development of Mymensingh district with Tk 1,000 crore, rehabilitation and riverbank protection of Meghna-Dhonagoda irrigation project with Tk 347.65 crore.
