Kathmandu, August 21

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is to provide Rs 20 billion loan assistance for the implementation of the Earthquake Emergency Assistance Project.

An agreement regarding this was signed and exchanged between Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Finance (MoF) Madhu Kumar Marasini and ADB Country Director for Nepal Kenichi Yokoyama on behalf of the Nepal government and the ADB today.

The main objective of the project is to restore critical public and social infrastructure and services with strengthened resiliency. Under this project, at least 700 schools will be built and retrofitted with improved water and sanitation facilities, and five model schools will be built with ICT equipment, science laboratories and improved learning spaces.

Similarly, about 135 kilometres of strategic roads and 450 kilometres of rural roads damaged by the earthquake will be rehabilitated with feature of build back better for road safety and climate resilience, under the project.

Likewise, 300 district-level government buildings damaged by the earthquake will be rebuilt and retrofitted with disaster resilient standards. The project also includes enhancing the disaster preparedness and management capacity.

The Reconstruction Authority is the executing agency of the project, which is expected to be completed by September 30, 2018.