India and Asian Development Bank sign US$400 million loan agreement to build high-quality urban infrastructure

The central government on Monday signed a US$400 million loan with the Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) to support its urban reform agenda to build high-quality urban infrastructure, improve service delivery and promote efficient governance systems. Signed on loan. The signatories to the loan agreement for Sub-Programme 2 of the Sustainable Urban Development and Service Delivery Program were Juhi Mukherjee, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, and Takeo Konishi, Country Director, ADB's India Resident Mission. The program also envisages integrated urban planning reforms to control urban sprawl and promote systemic and planned urbanization through capacity building of ULBs and community awareness as well as enhancing the entire ecosystem of legal, regulatory and institutional reforms. Has been done. It said such integrated planning processes would incorporate climate and disaster resilience, promote nature-based solutions, improve the urban environment and improve the financial sustainability of cities by generating additional revenues. Furthermore, cities will be encouraged to become creditworthy through various reforms to increase their revenues such as property taxes and user fees, improve their efficiency and rationalize their expenditures.