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Planning Commission the central socio-economic planning agency of the government of Bangladesh. The origin of the Planning Commission in Bangladesh may be traced back to East Pakistan Planning Board. The Planning Commission in Pakistan established in 1953 was given the task of inter-agency allocation of resources and some role in economic decision-making. The East Pakistan wing of the commission was named the East Pakistan Planning Board. The main objective behind its creation was to provide for an effective institution for formulating investment programmes as well as for negotiating with the central government in Pakistan for securing a share of the national financial resources for the development of East Pakistan. Soon after its creation, the Board undertook the task of appraising and evaluating the development projects, the number of which in East Pakistan had been much less as compared to those in the western wing. In fact, the planning commission established in January 1972 had its embryonic start in the Planning cell which was in existence in the government-in-exile during the war of liberation (1971). The Planning cell was mainly concerned with formulating a programme of reconstruction of the economy of post-independence Bangladesh. A full-fledged planning commission was set up in 1972. There was no separate planning division, and one wing of the commission looked after its administration as well as external resources
mobilisation and monitoring of development projects. But subsequently, to accelerate implementation of the projects the Project Implementation Bureau (PIB) was created in January 1975 as a division under the Ministry of Planning. A little later, the function of external resource
mobilisation was entrusted to a separate division known as External Resources Division (now Economic Relations Division, ERD). Simultaneously, Planning Division was created to look after the administration and executive aspects of planning functions. Under the new structural transformation of the Bangladesh Planning Commission, planning cells were created in the line ministries/divisions in 1975 to strengthen their planning capability. The Planning Commission has mainly three types of functions: advisory, executive and co-ordinational. Bangladesh Planning Commission has the responsibility of advising the government in matters of development goals, priorities and strategies and policy measures. The Commission is responsible for the preparation of long, medium and short-term plans in consultation with the line ministries/divisions and executive agencies. It has also some executive responsibilities. In order to ensure consistency of investments with overall and sectoral objectives of a plan, the Commission has been vested with the responsibility of processing of development projects. Its coordinational role encompasses the whole range of planning activities. The Commission is essentially a professional body. But since planning is a political process it works under the guidance of a minister. But ultimate decision-making rests with the head of the government ie, the prime minister who is the chairperson of the Commission. Below the Commission, there are six divisions that are sub-divided into thirty-one wings. Two of the divisions deal with general macro issues of the economy and these are General Economics Division (GED) and Programming Division. Four sectoral divisions are Agricultural, Water Resources and Rural Institutions Division; Industry and Energy Division; Socio-Economic Infrastructure Division and Physical Infrastructure Division. These divisions deal with the planning and policy issues of different sectors of the economy. The functions of the Commission are discharged through a six tier structure of officials, namely member, division chief, joint chief, deputy chief, senior assistant chief and assistant chief. The working units within a division are wings headed by joint chiefs, branches headed by deputy chiefs, and desks headed by senior assistant chiefs/assistant chiefs. The responsibilities of each of the tier of officials are: (1) Member, who acts as a member of the commission, contributes to the policy issues formulated by the commission, and holds over-all charge of all policies and programmes relating to the sectors of the economy under his charge; (2) Division Chief, who acts as the executive head of the division and holds overall charge of all the wings under his division; (3) Joint Chief, who holds charge of a sector or sub-sector and supervises preparation of project reports containing appraisal comments on projects for consideration and approval by ECNEC; (4) Deputy Chief, who holds charge of sub-sectors, assists division/joint chief and prepares project reports or draft sub-sectoral plans or programs; and (5) Senior Assistant Chief/Assistant Chief, who assists division chief, joint chief and deputy chief, and prepares draft project appraisal reports. The Commission is required to maintain close liaison with all ministries/divisions and agencies of the government. The sector divisions of the planning commission start project processing only after the ministries/divisions submit the relevant papers to them. In addition to these, the commission has to depend for planning inputs on some specialized agencies of the government. With heavy reliance on foreign aid for implementation of plans, programmes and projects, the task of negotiation and lining up of foreign aid has been assigned to ERD. Next comes the Finance Division and the Internal Resource Division for internal resource
mobilisation and availability. The allocation of funds to individual projects in the
annual development programme (ADP) is guided by the progress reports on projects prepared by Implementing, Monitoring and Evaluating Division (IMED). The data requirement of the Commission is met by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). The ministries/divisions are empowered to approve Technical Assistance (TA) Projects costing up to taka ten million. The planning minister can approve projects costing up to taka one hundred million. After the approval of the planning minister, projects have to be placed before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for information. Investment projects above taka one hundred million are placed in the ECNEC meetings for consideration and approval. The national economic council (NEC) consists of all members of the council of minister and is chaired by the prime minister. The secretariat of the NEC is the planning division. The main functions of the NEC are to provide overall guidance for the formulation of perspective plan, Five Year Plan, ADP and economic policies and to finalise and approve them. The ECNEC examines and approve development projects and performs such other functions as are assigned to it by NEC. The terms of reference of ECNEC are as follows: (a) to consider and approve development projects; (b) to review the progress of implementation of projects; and (c) to monitor the overall performance of the economy and related policy issues.
The Commission formulates five-year economic plans. However,
planned development of the country can be divided into two phases - phase
one: between 1947 and 1970 during Pakistan period, and phase two: the
Bangladesh period. In the first phase there were three five-year plans
including a six-year development plan from 1951 to 1970. In the second
phase it took sometime to consolidate the administrative structure and
reconstruction of infrastructure of the war-ravaged country and gather
information for preparation of development plan. The First Five-Year plan
of Bangladesh covered the period 1973-78. Then, instead of launching the
Second Five Year Plan, a Two Year Plan for the period 1978-80 was taken
up. The Second Five-Year, Third Five-Year and Fourth Five-Year plans were
launched during 1980-95. The Fifth Five-Year Plan (1997-2002) started
after a gap of two years. [Mujibur Rahman]
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