By Amin
Ahmed
ISLAMABAD, April 15: The Asian Development Bank and the
government signed on Thursday an agreement involving an
investment of $650 million in reconstruction of vital
infrastructure damaged by the last year’s floods.
The financial assistance under the Flood Emergency
Reconstruction Project (FERP) will be for rebuilding damaged
national and provincial road networks, irrigation systems
and flood protection structures.
According to details announced by the ADB, $600 million of
FERP resources will come from ordinary capital resources and
$50 million from the bank’s concessional Asian Development
Fund.
The investment is in line with the Flood Damage and Needs
Assessment prepared by the ADB and World Bank in November
last year. It put the overall damage caused by the floods at
around $10 billion — half of it in agriculture. About 10 per
cent of total cultivable land, over 1.5 million livestock
and 10 million poultry perished in the floods.
The ADB will also provide a grant of $4 million for capacity
building technical assistance to strengthen implementation
and oversight of the project.
The acting economic affairs secretary and ADB’s country
director Rune Stroem signed the agreement.
“Rebuilding roads, irrigation and flood protection
structures will help resume economic activities, secure
livelihood of farmers and protect all other facilities from
future disasters.
The investment is designed not only to rebuild what has been
damaged but also to build it to a better standard,” Rune
Stroem said.
The project will involve construction of 793km of national
highways and bridges and 800km of provincial road networks
to multiple hazards resistant standards. The project will
improve 1.5 million hectare of agricultural land by
restoring and strengthening flood protection embankment and
rehabilitating canals and other allied infrastructure.
The investment will re-establish inter-regional
connectivity, access to markets and boost the reconstruction
and livelihood restoration processes in the affected areas.
“We look forward to work closely with the government and
provincial agencies for a speedy and effective
implementation of the project ensuring earliest recovery for
millions of affected people,” the ADB director said.
As a part of its overall post-flood support, the ADB has
increased trade finance facility to Pakistan by $500
million, providing extra cover to emergency imports and
exports during the reconstruction period.
Courtesy: The DAWN
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Pakissan.com;
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