NABARD sanctions loan for AP infra projects

Hyderabad: The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has sanctioned an additional loan of Rs 206.01 crore to the Andhra Pradesh Government for various infrastructure projects.

The loan has been approved under Rural Infrastructure Development Fund (RIDF) by the NABARD's Project Sanction Committee. With this, the current year's sanction under RIDF has reached Rs 1,315.23 crore.

The fund would be used for constructing 84 roads and 15 bridges, among other projects, in 19 districts, a NABARD release said.

These projects will be implemented by Roads & Buildings Department and benefit 24.56 lakh population in 582 villages and povide access to 207 marketing centres/mandal headquarters. The works are expected to create 29.92-lakh man days of non-recurring emp loyment in rural areas, it said.

Other projects include BEd College at Bhadrachalam, additional hostel and classrooms for Polytechnic College at Srisailam, hostel buildings for 19 Government Junior Colleges and additional buildings for 29 Tribal Welfare Residential Schools.

The BEd College would be exclusively for tribals. The total cumulative sanction under various tranches of RIDF to Andhra Pradesh stands at Rs 10,609.05 crore of which the state government has utilised Rs 6,825.97 crore up to January 2009, the release ad ded.