World Bank’s $500-million Loan for Green NH Corridors
Recently, the Indian Government and the World Bank have signed a loan agreement of $500-million for a project for building green National Highway corridors.
Key Points
- Under the Green National Highways Corridors Project, for which the loan agreement has been signed, the safe and green National Highway corridors will be built in four states namely- Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh.
- The project will provide support to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways in constructing 783 km of national highways by integrating green and safe technology designs like industrial byproducts, local and marginal materials, and other bioengineering solutions.
- The project will thus enhance the capacity of the Road Transport and Highways Ministry and will also set new standards for constructing motorable roads.
- The national highway corridor project will also support analytics to map the movement pattern and freight volume on the national highways, determine problems, and provide innovative logistics solutions.
- The project will also help the ministry in analyzing the gender-related issues in the transport sector and will help in generating jobs for women by providing training to microenterprises led by women.
- As it is important that investments in infrastructure are climate-resilient, a disaster risk assessment of around 5000km of NH will also be undertaken under the project.
- This loan agreement has a maturity period of 18.5 years; it also includes a grace period of 5 years.
World Bank and India
Recently, India and the World Bank signed an agreement of $400 million. Under the agreement, the World Bank will support the efforts of the Indian Government to provide social assistance to the vulnerable and poor people impacted by COVID-19. This agreement was part of a two-operation series program of which the first operation for $750 million was approved in May 2020.