India, Germany ink loan agreements

India and Germany on Monday signed a series of financial agreements, including one for an 200 million euro loan for an environment-friendly urban mobility project.

The inter-governmental umbrella agreement for the various funding projects were signed here, a Finance Ministry release said.

"The Government to Government umbrella agreement was signed here today (Monday) to formalise an amount up to euro 200 million for financial cooperation in the form of loan for the project 'Climate Friendly Urban Mobility III' and 11 million euro accompanying measures in form of grant for four projects," it said.

The first part of the agreement had already been signed in May, it added.

Besides, four other agreements were signed between India's Department of Economic Affairs and German government-owned development bank KfW under the framework of Indo-German Bilateral Development Cooperation.

One loan agreement signed with KfW is for the project "Community-based sustainable Forest Management Component I Manipur" that entails a financing of Euro 15 million.

The broad objectives of the project are restoration of degraded forests in upper watersheds, reclamation of abandoned shifting cultivation areas, biodiversity conservation, water resources conservation and livelihood improvement of forest dependent rural and tribal people in the project area, the statement said.

The other loan agreements signed were for projects under the Madhya Pradesh Urban Sanitation and Environment Programme (50 million euros), the Sustainable Urban Infrastructure Development Odisha Phase II (55 million euros) and the Green Energy Corridor Intra-State Transmission System in Maharashtra (12 million euros), it added.

--IANS

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