Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has urged the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to reduce the time required for approving a proposal along with the time lag between approving and disbursing loans, as the developing countries in the Asian region need to build their infrastructure and increase social sector spending. He also stressed that speedier financing would help lend an edge to the ADB.
Jaitley also insisted the bank to establish a regional hub in New Delhi, so that it could expedite lending to development projects across the region. In addition, the finance minister also asked the multilateral lender to focus more on social infrastructure like health and education besides climate resilient agriculture, better farm production technologies, improved value chain management and creation of better marketing infrastructure for the farm produce since a large number of rural population of developing countries depends on agriculture.
Referring to the ADB’s avowed objective of eliminating poverty from the Asia-Pacific region, the Minister said that in addition to sectors like energy, urban development and transportation, there was need to focus more on affordable renewable energy. In the area of urban development, especially in the sector of drinking water and sanitation, he cited user charges and financial sustainability of urban bodies as the major challenges.