The World Bank has agreed to lend financial assistance to the proposal of Uttarakhand Government regarding drinking water supply to the peri- urban areas in seven districts of the state. The Finance Minister Prakash Pant said that a legal agreement for the project between the Union Government, State government and the World Bank was endorsed at Finance Ministry in New Delhi on Monday. The drinking water project would commence this year and would be completed in the year 2023.
The Secretary Drinking water, Arvind Singh Hyanki signed the document on behalf of the state government. Pant said that the project would cover 35 peri-urban areas of Dehradun, Haridwar, Pauri, Tehri, Nainital, Udham Singh Nagar and Almora districts.
The state government had approached World Bank to provide financial assistant to the `975 Crore project in November 2017. The bank would fund project with a loan of `780 Crore while the state government would spend `195 crore. Expressing happiness on the development, the Minister said that a population of 516222 would get benefitted by the project and the per capita water availability of the areas under the project would increase from present 50-70 litres to 100-135 litres. Pant said that the loan refund to the World Bank would be done on a ratio of 90:10 in which 90 percent loan amount would be paid by the Union Government while the State would have to repay only 10 per cent of the amount.