Odisha ready to seek external assistance from ADB & JICA

Odisha government today decided to seek financial assistances from two international funding agencies like ADB and JICA for implementation of separate projects in the state.
While the Asian Development Bank would fund for the Odisha Skill Development Project, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) would provide financial assistance for completion of an irrigation project.
The ADB will fund around Rs 662 crore for the skill development project where as JICA will give Rs 1787 crore to make provision of irrigation facility over an area of about 40,000 hectare of land.
The separate proposals regarding the lending of funds from the two agencies were approved at the cabinet meeting presided over by chief minister Naveen Patnaik here this evening.

The ADB will support the establishment of eight Advanced Skills Training Institutes (ASTI) under an autonomous umbrella society like Odisha Skills Development Society (OSDS), chief secretary G C Pati told reporters after the cabinet meeting.
Pati said the proposed ASTIs will be aligned to various industrial clusters in Odisha. Such ASTIs will demonstrate international quality benchmark in training, create of pool of competent master trainers, act as resource centres for the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) ecosystem and industry in the state.

"ASTIs will function as finishing schools cum production centres and will serve as resource centres for public and private ITIs, polytechnics, colleges and skill development centres," Pati said.

The state government will avail assistance from ADB for an amount of USD 110 millions equivalent to Rs 662 crore for implementation of OSDP. "The total cost of project is Rs 1051 crore (USD 175 million) of which the state's share will be Rs 389 crore (USD 65 million)," Pati informed adding that the project implementation period would be from 2015-16 to 2019-20.
Similarly, on JICA assistance, Pati said the funds would be utilised for Rengali irrigation project, left bank canal Phase-II for execution of balance works of the Left canal System.