Thursday, September 24, 2009 WASHINGTON: The World Bank today approved four loans worth $4.3 billion to help India finance its infrastructure programmes and further strengthen the capital base of state-run banks. The approved loan includes a budgetary support of $2 billion for capital infusion in select public sector banks to help them maintain credit growth.The approval also includes a $1.2-billion lending for the government-run India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL) that will provide long-term funds to public-private partnership (PPP) projects in road, port and power sector.The Indian government has estimated that public sector banks will require at least $4.8 billion during 2009-11 to maintain credit growth over the medium term. For the infrastructure sector, the Indian Planning Commission has estimated that an investment of $500 billion is required during the Eleventh five-year plan (2007-12).The World Bank loan also includes $1 billion loan for Power Grid and $150 million for improving water supply and sanitation project in 2,600 villages of Andhra Pradesh.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Comments