The health ministry's development spending has dropped substantially year-on-year in the first five months of the current fiscal year, despite the interim government's move to raise its allocation in the revised budget.

During the July-November period of fiscal year (FY) 2024-25, the ministry managed to spend Tk 544 crore, according to data from the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED).

This is one-third of what it spent in the same period last fiscal year.

In FY24, the health ministry, which is comprised of the health services division and family planning division, spent Tk 1,480 crore.

Of them, the health services division, which is one of the top recipients among 15 ministries and divisions, spent Tk 325 crore, which is only 2.91 percent of its allocation of Tk 11,153 crore.

Speaking to journalists after a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) on November 25, Planning Adviser Wahiduddin Mahmud said they were planning to raise the budget for the health and education sector in the revised budget.

"The health sector gets less than one percent of the budget. But they could not spend this trivial allocation," Prof Mustafizur Rahman, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue, told The Daily Star over the phone yesterday.

"Although the health sector is vital for the country, its (budget) implementation rate has been among the worse historically. The government should review why they have not been able to spend for years," he said.

A large portion of the country's people are dependent on public health services. So, the government must unearth the actual reasons, he added.

"The poor capacity of the health ministry is a very common factor behind the low project implementation rate," acknowledged IMED Secretary Abul Kashem Md Mohiuddin during a conversation with this newspaper.

He also thinks that a lack of proper project selection was responsible for the poor implementation.

"The health sector is very crucial. We have to remain careful about project selection," he said.

Out of the 15 recipients with the highest allocations, the Local Government Division spent the highest amount, Tk 7,711 crore, 20 percent of its total allocation.

However, this is low compared to last fiscal year.

About this division's progress, Prof Rahman said this has come about as local engineers are carrying out their work according to their past schedule.

In the first five months of FY25, the government's implementing agencies managed to spend Tk 34,214 crore from the overall fund provided in the annual development programme (ADP).

The implementation rate stood at 12.29 percent, which is the lowest in at least the past 14 years.

It was 17.06 percent or Tk 46,857 crore in the same period of fiscal year 2023-24.

However, the interim government has planned to accelerate the implementation of ongoing development projects, saying this would help avert a further economic slowdown.

"The private sector is not investing and if the government expenditure too becomes stagnant, it will cause a further slowdown," the planning adviser had said after the Ecnec meeting.

However, the IMED secretary also cited ongoing austerity measures and the economic downturn centring the July-August unrest for the slow implementation.

Asked about overall low implementation, he said, "We just compiled the project execution data. We have nothing to do except strengthen our monitoring to ensure good quality and timely project implementation," he said.

"We are still doing (monitoring) it," he said.