ADB to look into Aizawl’s urban mobility, grants PRF loan worth $4.5 million

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AIZAWL: Asian Development Bank (ADB) to finance projects related to improving urban mobility in Aizawl, capital city of northeastern state of Mizoram.

The Government of India and the Asian Development Bank, on Tuesday, October 26, signed a $4.5 million project readiness financing (PRF) loan. The funding will support the project preparation and design activities to improve urban mobility and better manage urban sprawl in Aizawl.

The proposal of funding the Aizawl Sustainable Urban Transport Project was signed between Rajat Kumar Mishra, Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Activities, in the Ministry of Finance, and Takeo Konishi, Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission, signed for ADB.

Aizawl needs a long-term solution to improve its livability and urban mobility. After the signing, Mishra said that the loan will help in providing solutions and ensuring the enhancement of readiness of the area in terms of development. Mishra also mentioned that the PRF will help officials in identifying “high priority urban transport investments and schemes on similar lines”.

The representative of ADB said that the PRF will assist the state in developing a Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) that would outline the urban transport development strategy. This would further assist in building synergies with urban development planning initiatives in Aizawl.

Aizawl, though the center of the administrative and service industry of Mizoram, has a largely constricted urban mobility. This could be owed to rapid and unplanned urbanization in a short period of time. Its direct consequence has been traffic congestion on narrow roads and an adversely impacted road safety.

The PRF will strengthen the backbone of projects that are working towards resolving the city’s transport problems by adopting sustainable urban mobility solutions. The PRF will be conducting feasibility studies of projects that are underlined as priority in the CMP and prepare detailed project reports of the same.

Overall, the grant is a piece of big news for the state as it will develop an institutional capacity of the state’s Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation Department in pre-implementation.