Govt.’s development program in full steam

Tuesday, 4 February 2014 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

With a view to accomplish the development objectives as stipulated in the ‘Mahinda Chintana – Vision for the Future,’ the Government has implemented a comprehensive national development program enhancing economic growth and addressing the social and regional disparities. In this context, a large number of projects and programs are being implemented to fulfill the gaps and needs of various sectors in terms of annual budgetary estimations. Accordingly, the Government has allocated Rs. 477 billion in 2013, to implement 1939 small, medium and large scale development projects and programs under main development thematic areas namely: human capital development; connectivity; access to public utility services; industrial and technological development; agriculture and irrigation; governance and; regional development. Of them 303 projects are large scale projects which the total cost estimate of each is over Rs. 500 million. These development initiatives are being monitored on regular and continuous basis to ensure that resources earmarked for public investments are utilised in an efficient and effective manner. The Department of Project Management and Monitoring of the Ministry of Finance and Planning is mandated to monitor and evaluate all development initiatives. Amidst tireless efforts to implement these development activities within the agreed time frame and cost estimate, some projects and

programs are under-performing due to various reasons such as: lack of early preparation for procurement process; duplication of systems and procedures between lending and implementing agencies; weak contract management and; poor cash-flow planning; lack of coordination among relevant stakeholders and; lack of project management capacity in project management units. While continuing the existing efforts to ensure smooth implementation, a National Steering Committee comprising the Secretaries of key line Ministries has also been established as a new initiative in order to avoid the above bottlenecks and to improve the performance of projects. As per the mid-year progress review, the overall performance of the development projects and programs under various sectors is summarised in the table.