$210m ADB loans for Sri Lanka

[TamilNet, Thursday, 14 December 2006, 11:43 GMT]
The Asian Development Bank signed a loan deal for Sri Lanka worth 210 million dollars on Thursday, to upgrade national highways and water sector, reports said. A loan package of 150 million dollars will be used to widen and rehabilitate a network of 350 kilometres of roads, LankaBusinessOnline reported, quoting the finance ministry.

In addition to roads in the central and eastern provinces, the loan will also upgrade southern highway links to Aluthgama, Hikkaduwa and Matara.

The project will also support the land acquisition and resettlement activities for four Colombo link roads – along the Kandy road, Awissawella road, High Level road and Horana road.

“Widening of these roads is vital to provide adequate capacity for road links to the proposed Outer Circular Highway and the Southern Expressway,” the finance ministry statement said.

The work includes improving and replacing bridges, drainage culverts and providing weight stations.

The project is to be completed by 2010.

The government will put in 58 million dollars of the project’s total estimated cost of 208 million dollars and the project executed by the highways ministry and the Road Development Authority.

The balance 60 million dollar loan is supplementary aid from the ADB for an ongoing Secondary Towns and Rural Community based Water Supply and Sanitation project.

“Price escalation factors and modifications in project design have resulted in an overall cost overrun of the project from 86 million dollars to 175.2 million dollars,” the finance ministry said.