THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Cabinet on Tuesday gave its nod to avail of `3,500 crore as loan from the World Bank (WB) towards rebuilding the floodravaged state. It also approved the draft of the Rebuild Kerala development project. The first phase of the development loan from WB will be in the ratio of 70:30. With `3,500 crore loaned from WB, the state will be able to complete projects worth over `5,000 crore.
The Cabinet entrusted the Chief Secretary to coordinate the follow-up actions to make the loan available by June-July. Announcing this, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said detailed studies by United Nations’ agencies found the state would need `31,000 crore for rebuilding purpose. Meanwhile, the Cabinet cleared the draft of the Rebuild Kerala project , which spreads across four phases on disaster management, environment, organisational strengthening and IT services and covers 11 sectors – water resources and irrigation, water distribution, sanitation, urban sector, roads and bridges, transport, forest, agriculture and allies sectors, fisheries, l ivelihood and land utilisation.
The Chief Secretary and the Rebuild Kerala CEO have been tasked with taking follow- up steps towards its implementation. The draft document will first go through a high-power panel led by the Chief Secretary.
Later, proposals and suggestions will be collected from the public, non-resident Keralites, professionals and the Rebuild Kerala advisory panel. The Cabinet also gave in-principle nod for preparatory work for availing of the loan and directed the departments concerned to take further steps