WB to decide on loan for State in two weeks

By Roy Mathew

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, OCT. 4. The Director Board of the World Bank will decide on a loan for the $ 89-million Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project in Kerala on October 16.

Negotiations had been under way between the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) and the World Bank on the loan for some time, and a bank team had visited the State for the final appraisal of the project a few months ago. Last month, an official team from the State, consisting of the Finance Secretary, Mr. Vinod Rai, the Irrigation Secretary, Mr. Elias George, and the Project Director, Mr. James Varghese, visited Washington for the last round of talks. The loan has been tied up now and only the formal sanction by the board of the bank is pending.

The project envisages implementation of water supply and sanitation schemes in 80 select panchayats in Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram and Kozhikode districts. The panchayats will be chosen on the basis of higher proportion of poor and vulnerable groups, severity of water scarcity, low latrine coverage and higher level of implementation capacity. The schemes will be chosen by the beneficiaries themselves subject to the technical feasibility studies conducted by the KWA.

Besides water supply, the project components will include sanitation and hygiene promotion activities, community development, women development initiatives and tribal development. The works will include water supply scheme and augmentation and rehabilitation of existing schemes including associated micro watershed development measures. An average of 1.5 km of storm water drains will be built per panchayat. The project also envisages construction of new latrines and conversion of existing ones into safe types and small-scale environment initiatives.

The World Bank will finance 74 per cent of the total project cost of about $ 89 million (about Rs. 400 crores). The balance is to be met by the State Government (6.9 per cent), grama panchayats (8.1 per cent) and the beneficiaries (11 per cent). Of the total project cost, civil works would cost more than $ 60 million and goods and materials less than half a million dollars. Consultancies, studies and training will be the second biggest component needing more than $ 16 million (Rs. 72 crores). The project would involve expenditure in foreign exchange as well. This (foreign exchange) component exceeds Rs. 13 crores.

The civil works under the project consist mainly of construction of about 2,400 new piped water supply schemes serving a cluster of households with water sourced from open wells, borewells or springs, rehabilitation of about 200 existing KWA schemes, about 850 micro watershed works, construction of 58 storm water drains, household latrines (about 30,000 new and 10,000 old) and about 20 pay-and-use toilets. Except for six large piped water supply schemes with filtration plants and infiltration gallery serving a large number of households falling in different panchayats, most of the piped water supply schemes and environment sanitation works will cover less than 100 households each.

The cost of small piped water supply schemes and environment sanitation works covering about 200 households would be about Rs. 16 lakhs to Rs 20 lakhs each. Schemes serving less than 100 households would cost about Rs. 9 lakhs each. Each of the six large pipped water supply schemes would cost about Rs. 2.25 crores.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Southern States
Previous : Poll violence: 338 arrested in Kannur
Next     : Strike turns into a virtual bandh