The Centre and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday signed a $2 million Project Readiness Financing loan for designing climate-resilient urban infrastructure, strengthening institutional capacity and improving municipal resource mobilisation in 16 district headquarter towns in Nagaland.
The loan deal was signed in New Delhi between Rajat Kumar Mishra, Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance and Takeo Konishi, Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission.
A statement issued by ADB quoted Mishra as saying that the facility would support key preparatory activities for the ensuing project aimed at improving urban infrastructure and services in Nagaland to help the state realise its economic potential.
“The ADB financing will ensure high readiness of the ensuing project through preparing an urban sector strategy, undertaking feasibility studies and detailed engineering designs of selected sub-projects and building capacity of state-level agencies in project implementation, resource mobilisation and anchoring reforms,” said Konishi.
Nagaland’s towns and cities face the long-term challenges of climate change, lack of basic amenities, and poor connectivity. Major transport routes around urban areas are severely affected by landslides during the monsoon season. Urban roads are in poor condition without proper stormwater drainage. Most cities face acute water shortage and have inadequate sewerage or septage management systems. All these issues constrain the economic development of the state.
The PRF loan will help design water supply, sanitation, solid waste management and urban roads in 16 DTHs with climate resilient features and improved access to the poor and vulnerable. Capacity building of state agencies will help augment own-resource mobilisation by urban local bodies (ULBs), improve their readiness for implementing the ensuing project and initiating sector and institutional reforms, said the statement.
ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty, it further said.
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