India-ADB: One-billion-dollar loan agreement for Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan

The Government of India and the New Development Bank have signed a loan agreement for one thousand million dollars on December 16, 2020. The loan would be utilised to provide support for the Aatma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan through MGNREG Scheme.

Key Facts

• This programme will support the Government to mitigate the adverse economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic.
• It would also help in the economic recovery of the rural areas by the Natural Resource Management (NRM) works.
• The loan agreement will facilitate the economic activity and employment generation.
• It will also boost the rural demand. This, will combat the decline in economic activity because of COVID-19.
• The loan agreement further proposes to create the durable rural infrastructure assets related to the NRM.
• It will also facilitate for the generation of employment opportunities for rural poor including the migrant workers who returned from urban areas and have lost their livelihoods.

India-ADB

The support provided by the ADB to India is aimed at accelerating the economic transformation. It seeks to do the economic transformation by building the industrial competitiveness, accelerating growth of low-income states, creating jobs and addressing environmental and climate change challenges.

Asian Development Bank (ADB)

It is a regional development bank. It was established on December 19, 1966. It has been headquartered in Philippines. It also has 31 field offices across the world. Currently, ADB has 68 members. It has been modelled on the basis of World Bank. It has a similar weighted voting system like world bank, where votes are distributed in proportion with the capital subscriptions of members.  ADB is also an official United Nations Observer. Japan and the United States holds the largest proportion of shares of 15.571%. China has 6.429% of share and India has 6.317% share in the bank.