ADB to make Delhi regional hub for S Asian operations

YOKOHAMA: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is developing New Delhi as a regional hub for its operations in South Asia to speed up decision-making and reduce time lag in implementing projects in the region.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley in his speech at the ADB’s 50th annual meeting in Yokohama on Sunday had proposed the same.

“I would strongly urge the Bank to set up a regional hub in New Delhi for South Asia region so that a majority of the proposals could be processed there speedily. Such hubs could be established in other regions too,” Jaitley said in his speech.

This, Jaitley said, could reduce the time required to approve a proposal as well as the time lag between approval and disbursement of loans.

When asked, ADB president Takehiko Nakao during the closing press conference on Sunday said the Bank is trying to now make several places like Delhi for South Asia and Kazakhstan for Central Asia a hub for the region. “We have already started outposting staff for private sector operations and also for procurement. We have already started working on the idea of a hub, but we have not announced this is a hub, but we are out-posting more people,” Nakao said.

Jaitley in his address said in addition to sectors like energy, urban development and transportation, ADB needs to focus more on affordable renewable energy.

“In the area of urban development, especially in the sector of drinking water and sanitation, the major challenges remain in the realm of user charges and financial sustainability of urban bodies. The Bank needs to promote models that will focus on these challenges.”

He also asked ADB to give more emphasis on climate resilient agriculture, better farm production technologies, improved value chain management and creation of better marketing infrastructure for the farm produce. “ADB also needs to focus more on social infrastructure like health and education,” he added.