The National Economic Council (NEC) yesterday approved the biggest ever Annual Development Programme (ADP) with a Tk 22,000 crore outlay.

The NEC meeting chaired by Prime Minister Khaleda Zia yesterday additionally allocated Tk 800 crore from the revenue budget for the ongoing small-scale development projects.

The new ADP is 16 percent higher than the current revised programme of Tk 19,000 crore.

Fifty three percent of the new ADP will be supported by local resources and 47 percent by foreign aid. The development schemes under the revenue budget will be entirely funded from local resources.

"Governments will come and go. But we should design projects in such a way so that their continuity is not affected by change of government," Prime Minister Khaleda Zia told the NEC meeting.

Her comments came against the backdrop that when the alliance government took over, it suspended about a hundred ADP projects approved by the previous Awami League government due to their questionable designs. Such elimination of projects still continues, yesterday's meeting observed.

Finance Minister M Saifur Rahman told the meeting that the government does not have any plan to impose new taxes to support a bigger ADP.

"We shall expand the tax net to raise additional resources," he told journalists after the meeting at the NEC auditorium.

Saifur claimed to have taken a number of steps to ensure proper implementation of the ADP.

"We have designed the projects in such a way that more projects are implemented in the rural areas," he said.

The power sector gets the highest allocation of 14.72 percent followed by the transport sector (14.47 percent).

Education and religion get 14.25 percent of allocation, rural development 10.59 percent and health and population 9.78 percent.

The government also approved a block allocation of Tk 40 crore for development works through the newly formed Gram Sarkar.

The government has also given a block allocation of Tk 560 crore to Dhaka City Corporation, information and communication technology field and some projects under power, rail and river transports.