The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is expected to provide a concessional loan of US$420 million in response to a call for its emergency support to rehabilitate mainly the rural infrastructure devastated by the recent flash floods in the northeastern regions of Bangladesh, officials said on Monday.
They said the government recently completed discussions on reconstruction of the flood-affected rural economy with an ADB mission, and the loan is likely to be confirmed by December next.
The flash floods in the greater Sylhet and Mymensingh regions have damaged hundreds of kilometers of roads, a number of bridges and culverts, standing crops on vast areas and dwelling houses, and washed away hundreds of livestock animals.
The floods during the last rainy season claimed at least 131 lives while an estimated 7.2 million people were affected in the nine northeastern districts of Sylhet, Sunamganj, Moulavibazar, Habiganj, Kishoreganj, Netrokona, Brahmanbaria, Mymensingh and Sherpur.
More than 4.0 million people needed humanitarian assistance.
"The ADB is coming forward with $420 million in emergency project support. The proposed funds will mainly be utilised for rehabilitation of the flood-affected people and assets," said a senior official at the Economic Relations Division (ERD).
"We've already completed a discussion with an ADB mission recently… We're hopeful that the loan would be confirmed by December this year," he said.
Another ERD official said the ADB has assured us of providing the concessional loan for the 'Flood Emergency Reconstruction Project".
With the assistance, the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) and the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) will rehabilitate the rural, district, regional and national roads while the Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) will rehabilitate the damaged embankments of the rivers and other water bodies.
The Bangladesh Railway will reconstruct the railway lines also damaged by the floods.
The Ministry of Agriculture will rehabilitate the affected farmers by providing necessary inputs and other relevant support to weather the losses.
The ERD officials said that some districts like Sunamganj, Habiganj, Sylhet, Netrokona and Kishoreganj were affected so badly that the financial support will facilitate recovering the economic losses fast.
"So, we are trying to get the loan confirmed by next December," said one of them.
Since it is an emergency support project, the funding is expected to be confirmed within the shortest possible time, said the ERD official.
