About 10 percent allocation of the Development Budget of Bangladesh will be diverted for immediate post-flood rehabilitation of affected infrastructure development projects, according to the World Bank press review Monday.
Official sources at the planning commission said that the transfer, needed ahead of the arrival of expected foreign flood aid, will represent about 366 million US dollar out of this years annual Development Program amounting to 3,66 billion US dollar. Part of the amount will be used for urgent repair of damaged roads, highways, bridges and other infrastructures.
Dhakas UN resident coordinator, the Danish national Jørgen Lissner, said the government assessment on the damage of the current spate of deluge in Bangladesh was reasonable, in view of the United Nations experience in facing disasters across the world. Lissner, however, added that the “damage assessment is not an exact science” and nobody knows the exact extent of damage at this stage.
Meanwhile, S. I. Khan, a former United Nations water resources expert, has called for a regional policy to reduce the severity of flooding in Bangladesh, a quarter of which is still submerged after the worst floods in years.
He called for the issue to be included on the agenda of the next summit of the seven-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) due in Dhaka in January.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
