ADB offers $2 million loan to support urban development projects in Nagaland

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday signed an agreement with the Government of India to offer $2 million project readiness financing (PRF) loan for designing climate-resilient urban infrastructure, strengthening institutional capacity and improving municipal resource mobilisation in Nagaland.

The signatories to the project readiness financing (PRF) for the proposed Nagaland Urban Infrastructure Development Project were Rajat Kumar Mishra, Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance who signed for the Government of India, and Takeo Konishi, Country Director of ADB's India Resident Mission who signed for ADB, according to a statement released by ADB.

"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 subprojects and building capacity of state level agencies in project implementation, resource mobilization and anchoring reforms," said Konishi.

The PRF loan will help design water supply, sanitation, solid waste management and urban roads in 16 district headquarter towns of Nagaland with climate resilient features and improved access to 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, the statement said.

( With inputs from ANI )