$190m ADB loan for upgrading rural roads

Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $190 million funding for upgrading rural roads, making agricultural areas more productive, and improving socioeconomic centres in rural areas of Bangladesh.

This loan is for its ongoing "Rural Connectivity Improvement Project" in the country, the ADB said in a statement today.

"This is ADB's second additional financing for the project," said ADB Principal Rural Development Specialist Masahiro Nishimura.

"…(it is for) further expanding improvement of rural road networks and introducing innovative features in climate and disaster resilience and road asset management to enhance living conditions in rural areas," he said.

This project is helping improve transport efficiency and reliability in rural areas, boost agricultural productivity and generate employment to help the country's sustainable economic growth, Nishimura said.

The ongoing project, originally approved in November 2018, aimed to upgrade about 1,700 kilometres (km) of rural roads, strengthen the capacity of rural infrastructure agencies and road users, and improve rural road master planning, said the ADB.

More than 900km of rural roads have been added to the original target since 2020, it added.

This latest loan will further extend improvement of another 1,350 km of rural roads with all-weather standards, climate resilience and safety features.

It will provide equipment and trucks to 180 mobile road maintenance offices at the upazila (subdistrict) level and will strengthen the capability of the Local Government Engineering Department on nature-based bioengineering solutions for climate change adaptation, it further said.