Bhubaneswar, Aug. 2: Urban development in the state will get a boost with the creation of the Odisha Urban Infrastructure Development Fund today. The fund will receive an assistance of Rs 350 crore from German government-owned development bank KfW.
The 50 million Euro assistance from KfW will help manage the growing urbanisation of the state in a planned manner.
The fund, on the other hand, will create a dedicated institutional framework for urban financing that will support municipal infrastructure development by combining financing with technical assistance and capacity building.
A senior official of the housing and urban development department said: “Odisha will be among the pioneering states to introduce a funding mechanism where an urban local body can take assistance from the infrastructure development fund. But as the fund is created with a loan, the local body has to pay it back in time and has to think of a project that can generate revenue.”
He added: “Development authorities and housing boards can also take assistance from the fund. The fund will encourage private investors to go for more public-private-partnership projects.”
Eligible projects can include improvements in water supply, sewerage and sanitation, solid waste management, drainage, slum development and rehabilitation, climate adaptation measures and other environmentally-friendly civic amenities in the urban and industrial areas of the state.
KfW today signed four agreements for the assistance programme with the state government and the Centre to make the fund functional. “Odisha can have better urban services and we are in a process to enact a legislation like granting property rights even to slum dwellers,” said chief minister Naveen Patnaik.
Principal secretary, housing and urban development department, Injeti Srinivas said that while the fund will be headed a trust chaired by the chief secretary, the project executing agency will be under the department.