Dhaka and New Delhi will review tomorrow (Wednesday) the progress of development projects under Indian credit, aimed at removing obstacles in the process of implementation, officials said Monday.
Officials at the Ministry of Finance (MoF) said a joint monitoring team of Bangladesh and India will sit in Dhaka to review the status of the projects Bangladesh adopted under three line of credits (LoCs) worth US$ 7.36 billion.
Additional secretary of Economic Relations Division (ERD) of Bangladesh and Deputy High Commissioner of India in Dhaka will co-chair the meeting. Representatives from the project execution agencies will be present at the meeting.
"We'll mainly focus on eliminating impediments to the project execution cycles at the meeting," an ERD official told the FE.
The meeting will evaluate the progress of the remaining three projects under the $862 million Loc-I, all 14 projects under the $2.0 billion LoC-II and 17 fresh projects under the $4.5 billion LoC-III, he added.
Project officials under different government agencies said they would request the Indian side to relax the procurement rules of the latest US$4.5 billion LoC-III as project implementation was facing difficulties due to a condition.
New Delhi in the LoC-III imposed the condition under which Dhaka is bound to procure from Indian market at least 75 per cent of goods or services or works for the projects.
Some projects need bricks, sands, steel, rod and cements. But purchasing the materials from Indian market will not be viable for the civil works, officials said.
Although there are some relaxations (case-to-case basis) in cases of the projects under the LoC-I and LoC-II, but those are not applicable in case of projects under the recently signed LoC-III, said an MoF official.
In December last, a Bangladesh team headed by an ERD additional secretary attended a meeting to review the progress of the LoC-III and also the first and second ones.
"The meeting will mainly dominate the progress of projects under the LoC-II and newly signed LoC-III," said another official at the MoF, adding that some of the projects were facing difficulties in getting approval from the Indian side while some others suffering from procurement complexities.
"These are ultimately affecting executions," he said.
The government of Bangladesh signed an agreement with Indian EXIM Bank to get $2.0 billion LoC-II in March 2016 and the $4.5 billion LoC-III in October last year.
Earlier, the government of Bangladesh took 15 projects under the LoC-I, after confirming it in August 2010.
The Indian credit bears an interest rate of 1.0 per cent with 0.5 per cent commitment fee to be repaid in 20 years with five years' of grace period.
