Dimapur: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide a $2 million project readiness financing (PRF) loan to Nagaland for urban infrastructure development in the State.

The Government of India and the Asian Development Bank today inked a pact in this regard, a PIB report stated.

Rajat Kumar Mishra, Additional Secretary, Economic Affairs Department in the Finance Ministry, signed the PRF pact for the proposed Nagaland Urban Infrastructure Development Project on behalf of the Figest on behalf of t Government of India, while the country director of ADB's India Resident Mission, Takeo Konishi, signed it for the ADB.

The loan will be utilised for designing climate-resilient urban infrastructure, strengthening institutional capacity, and

improving municipal resource mobilization in 16 district headquarters towns of Nagaland.

The PRF loan will also help design water supply, sanitation, solid waste management and urban roads in these towns with climate-resilient features with improved access for the poor and vulnerable. Capacity building of state agencies will help augment their own resource mobilisation by urban local bodies, improve their readiness for implementing the ensuing project, and initiate sector and institutional reforms, the PIB report said.

After signing the agreement. Mishra said that the facility would support key preparatory activities aimed at improving urban infrastructure and services in Nagaland to help the State realize its economic potential. "The ADB financing will ensure high readiness of the ensuing project by preparing an urban sector strategy, undertaking feasibility studies and detailed engineering designs of selected sub-projects, and building capacity of State level agencies in project implementation, resource mobilisation and anchoring reforms," Konishi said.

According to the report, Nagaland's towns and cities face the long-term challenges of climate change, lack of basic amenities, and poor connectivity:

Stating that major transport routes around urban areas are severely affected by landslides during the monsoon season it said urban roads are in poor condition without proper stormwater drainage. Most cities except Dimapur face acute water shortage and have inadequate sewerage or septage management system. All these issues constrain economic development of the State, the PIB report added.