Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 26, 2006
Online edition of India's National Newspaper Wednesday, Apr 26, 2006 |
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Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI: The Union Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, on Monday announced that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) would be doubling its annual loan assistance to India to over $2 billion and was likely to extend $7.3 billion over the next three years. Briefing newspersons here on ADB's annual meeting to be held in Hyderabad from May 3 to 6, Mr. Chidambaram said the steady increase in overall lending to India would raise the loan quantum from $2.25 billion in 2006 to $2.45 billion in 2007 and further to $2.65 billion in 2008. Since 1986, ADB had so far extended loans totalling $14 billion to India, he said. ADB's meeting in Hyderabad, the second such to be hosted in India, is to be attended by over 2,000 delegates in the wake of foreign investors evincing keen interest in its economic boom. The first such meeting was held in Delhi in 1990. India, Mr. Chidambaram said, would be tapping the ADB and the World Bank for its $1 billion project to restore 20,000 water bodies. Alongside, it would prepare big tourism projects to attract multilateral funding. In this regard, he cited the Buddhist tourism circuit that had the potential to lure religious tourists in huge numbers from the East Asian countries. The Finance Minister noted that there was some improvement in the disbursement of ADB loans to India. During 2006, it was expected to go up to 20 per cent from about 16 per cent in the previous year. As for the ADB-funded railways projects, he said the Railway Board Chairman had promised to increase the rate of spending. Asked if the Government would approach the ADB for more funds for infrastructure projects, Mr. Chidambaram said transportation accounted for 36 per cent of the bank's 2006-08 assistance programme and it was now in discussion with the Government to aid two projects, the National Highway Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Project (2006) and the National Highway PPP II project (2008). ADB also proposes to extend a second loan to the Railways to carry out reforms and investments for improving efficiency, safety and capacity building in 2007. As for funding the Rs. 66,000-crore freight corridor to link the four metros, Mr. Chidambaram said a feasibility report was under preparation for the first phase to connect Mumbai-Delhi-Kolkata at a cost of Rs. 22,000 crore.
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