The State Government has requested the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) under the Union Ministry of Finance and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to keep some of the lending charges to the least minimum.
This is especially so since repayment of these loans is the responsibility of borrowing State Governments, the Chief Minister, Mr Oommen Chandy, told the opening session of the tripartite portfolio review meeting of ADB-assisted projects.
LOCAL CONDITIONS
He also wanted the multilateral lender to appreciate local conditions that could often lead to unavoidable delays in implementation, despite the best of intentions and efforts of local authorities.
While overall guidelines and policies have to be followed, these must be implemented with a sense of pragmatism and understanding of the constraints on the part of the implementing authorities.
But the Chief Minister expressed happiness over the fact that meeting would also review the Kerala State Urban Development Project which aims to upgrade urban services in the five municipal corporations.
“Our Government is committed to successfully completing this project in a time-bound manner,” Mr Chandy said.
The State is interested to access technical and financial assistance of the ADB for restoring and rehabilitating its water resources.
“Our plans for the development of Kerala are elaborate and ambitious. Institutions like the ADB can play a very major role in assisting the State's efforts through infusion of resources as well as by bringing ideas and experience from across the world.”
The State Government is committed to take up infrastructure development on a large scale. Development of quality infrastructure including urban infrastructure will be one of the critical determinants of the State's future growth path.
It has adopted creation of jobs, building of infrastructure, improving connectivity and preventing environmental degradation as amongst its top priorities.
Urbanisation is a huge challenge and the settlement pattern is such that one cannot clearly distinguish between the urban and rural areas of the State.
Some of the special projects that the Government wants to take up include developing the Vizhinjam project, the SmartCity project in Kochi and the Kochi Metro Project, the Chief Minister said.