New Delhi, August 14
Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh said today that a substantial portion of the Rs 5,000-crore assistance from International Financial Consortium (IFC) would be in the form of grant and the rest in the form of soft loan.
The Chief Minister, who returned here yesterday night after a 12-day foreign visit to USA and UK, told The Tribune that the assistance would be for social sectors and the Punjab Government would soon execute a letter of intent. The meeting with the IFC, which is an organisation of international banks and private foundations, was facilitated
by the United Nations Organisation for Project Services (UNOPS).A seven-member monitoring committee, comprising four representatives of the Punjab government and three from the international agency, would keep an eye on the execution of projects dealing with drinking water, sewerage and waste disposal and community toilets.
Reacting to former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s remarks about the conditions imposed by the funding agencies, Capt Amarinder Singh said the main thrust of IFC was on transparency in governance. He said the Congress was determined to root out corruption and provide a clean, tansparent government in Punjab.
He alleged that Mr Badal had not been able to get funds for the state.
Giving details of his talks with the IFC, he said the agency had last year spent $ 15 billion on “human dignity’’ projects in countries like Ghana, Namibia and Vietnam, 80 per cent of which was grant.
The Punjab Government, he said, had been assured of an aid of about Rs 5,000 crore of which a substantial portion would be grant and the rest would be soft loan. “This loan is much softer than that given by the World Bank,’’ the Chief Minister said, adding that the payment could start after several years.
Capt Amarinder Singh said the state government proposes to augment sewerage facilities in the 11,000 villages of the state. He said that community toilets would be built in every village of the state which would be specially useful for the Dalits.
A pilot project of transforming one village in each of the 147 blocks of the state would be taken up to encourage the use of solar cooking and bio-gas.
The Chief Minister said talks were being held with Mediterranian Holdings, Siemens and JP Industries for investment in power projects of the state.
In UK, the Chief Minister held talks with NRIs on investment in IT and bio-tech sectors.
