Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, May 30, 2015 :

The ADB will fund around Rs 662 crore for the Odisha Skill Development Project while JICA will give Re 1787 crore financial assistance for completion irrigation projects spread over an area of 40,000 hectare of land.

The Cabinet headed by chief minister Naveen Patnaik approved both the lending proposals from the two agencies on Saturday.

The ADB will support the establishment of eight Advanced Skills Training Institutes (ASTI) under an autonomous umbrella society like Odisha Skills Development Society (OSDS), chief secretary G C Pati told reporters after the cabinet meeting.

Pati said the proposed ASTIs will be aligned to various industrial clusters in the state. Such ASTIs will demonstrate international quality benchmark in training, create pool of competent master trainers, act as resource centres for the Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) ecosystem and industry in the State.

“ASTIs will function as finishing schools cum production centres and will serve as resource centres for public and private ITIs, polytechnics, colleges and skill development centres,” Pati said.

The State Government will avail assistance from ADB for an amount of USD 110 millions equivalent to Rs 662 crore for implementation of OSDP. “The total cost of project is Rs 1051 crore (USD 175 million) of which the State’s share will be Rs 389 crore (USD 65 million),” Pati informed adding that the project implementation period would be from 2015-16 to 2019-20.

Similarly, on JICA assistance, Pati said the funds would be utilised for Rengali irrigation project, left bank canal Phase-II for execution of balance works of the Left
canal System.

The project objective is creation of irrigation potential of 72,967 hectare through implementation of project Left Bank Canal-II, Phase-II.

“The JICA loan assistance will be available for main canal work from 100.40 km to 123.50 km and the distributary work of 71.313 km to 123.50 km,” Pati said.

Replying a question, Pati said the main canal work from 71.313 km to 100.49 km has been executed from the State Government resources.

On the funding pattern, the Chief Secretary revealed that the state government will avail external assistance from JICA for an amount of Rs 1787 crore (33959 million yen) for implementation of Rengali Irrigation Project, Left Bank Canal,
Phase-II.

The total cost of the project is Rs 2598.99 crore where the State’s share would be Rs 468 crore, Pati said adding that the project implementation period would be April 2015 to March 2013.