New Delhi: The Government of India today signed a $400 million policy-based loan agreement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to support creating high-quality urban infrastructure, improving service delivery, and promoting efficient governance systems.
The signatories to the loan agreement for Sub-programme 2 of the Sustainable Urban Development and Service Delivery Programme were Juhi Mukherjee, Joint Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, and Takeo Konishi, Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission.
While sub-programme 1 approved in 2021 with a financing of $350 million established national-level policies and guidelines to improve urban services, sub-programme 2 supports investment planning and reform actions at the state and urban local body (ULB) levels.
After signing the loan agreement, Mukherjee stated that the programme supports the Government of India’s urban sector strategy with a focus on urban reforms aimed at making cities livable and centres of economic growth through provisioning of inclusive, resilient and sustainable infrastructure.
“Sub-programme 2 supports the reforms initiated by the states and the ULBs in operationalising the national flagship programme of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) 2.0 targeted for universal access to water supply and sanitation,” said Konishi. “The sub-programme also supports other mission objectives for ensuring urban water security through reducing water losses, recycling treated sewage for non-domestic use, rejuvenation of water bodies, and maintaining the sustainable groundwater level.”
The programme also envisages integrated urban planning reforms to control urban sprawls and foster systemic and planned urbanisation through enhancing the entire ecosystem of legal, regulatory, and institutional reforms along with capacity building of ULBs and community awareness. Specifically, ULBs will promote the modernisation of building bylaws, land pooling, urban agglomeration, and comprehensive urban mobility planning through transit-oriented development to help cities become well-planned centres of economic growth. Such integrated planning processes will incorporate climate and disaster resilience, promote nature-based solutions, improve the urban environment, and improve cities’ financial sustainability through the generation of additional revenues, the Finance Ministry stated.
Moreover, cities will be incentivised to become creditworthy through various reforms on enhancing their revenues such as property taxes and user charges, improving their efficiencies and rationalising their expenditures. “This will substantially help cities to mobilise innovative financings such as commercial borrowings, issuance of municipal bonds, sub-sovereign debts, and public–private partnerships to bridge significant deficits in urban infrastructure investments,” the Finance Ministry stated.
– global bihari bureau
