Deals for $525m WB fund to improve rural roads

Sayeed Muhammad of DOT
The World Bank will give $525 million to Bangladesh under two agreements, to be sighed today, to improve the country’s rural road transport system.
Out of the total sum, the bank will provide $425 million for “Operation for Supporting Rural Bridges (SupRB)” and the rest for “Second Rural Transport Improvement Project”, reports BSS.
“The agreements on these two schemes will be signed on Thursday at 3:00 pm at the NEC Conference Room 2 in the city’s Sher-e-Bangla Nagar area,” said an Economic Relations Division (ERD) official.
ERD Additional Secretary Mahmuda Begum and World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal Qimiao Fan will sign the agreements on behalf of respective sides.
According to the World Bank and the ERD, the $425 million assistance will be utilized to improve road connections in Bangladesh through building, maintaining and improving rural bridges in a program that will benefit two-thirds of the country’s people.
The Operation for Supporting Rural Bridges Program will maintain 85,000 meters of bridges, widen or rehabilitate 29,000 meters of bridges and build another 20,000 meters of new bridges.
The program will also create jobs for the local people by generating about 5.5 million person-days of employment, including long-term maintenance work.
The credit from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) has a 30-year term, including a five-year grace period.
Meanwhile, the $100 million additional financing for the ‘Second Rural Transport Improvement Project’ has a maturity of 30 years including grace period of five years.