The Project Sanctioning Committee of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) held a meeting recently and sanctioned Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) assistance of `795.65 crore to Odisha.
This includes an important project for setting up of `5 lakh litre per day (llPD) milk processing plant by the Omfed in Arilo and Govindpur mouza of Cuttack involving assistance of `232.13 crore.
The sanction also includes 5,123 cluster lift irrigation projects under Jalanidhi-II and 23 rural roads and bridges.
The sanction of 5 llPD Omfed plants will help in increasing the milk processing and marketing capacity of the Omfed and help the farmers in getting remunerative price for the milk. It would also address the old issue of environmental pollution and technological upgradation of the existing plant.
The sanction of 5,123 cluster lift irrigation projects involves an RIDF loan of `129.40 crore for implementation of 1,085 cluster Shallow Tube Wells and 4,038 cluster micro river lift projects under Jalanidhi-II programme of the State Government.
Reiterating its commitment to the development of critical rural connectivity in the State, the Nabard also sanctioned 18 roads and 5 bridge projects including the bridge project on Mahanadi on Atthamallick-Dholpur road in Boudh district.
The sanction of road and bridge projects involved an RIDF assistance of `352.79 crore for development of 179.67 km of road
and 3,692.67 metres of the bridge.