DHAKA: Government on Thursday signed a loan agreement of TK 450 crores with Asian Development Bank (ADB) to prevent the riverbank erosion.

Economic Relation Division secretary Mohammad Mezbahuddin and ADB’s country director Kazuhiko Higuchi singed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides at a ceremony at National Executive Committee’s auditorium in the city at 12:30pm on the day.

The agreement was done under the Tk 828.56 crore project titled “Flood and Riverbank Erosion Risk Management Investment Program”.

ADB and Netherlands government will provide financial assistance to the project.

The ADF (Asian Development Fund) loan, which is a soft loan, provided by the ADB will be repaid within 25 years with a five-year grace period. The interest against the loan is 2 percent.

Of the total project amount, Dutch government will provide Tk 122.4 crore while Bangladesh government will provide TK. 226.16 crore. Project implementation period is April 2014 to December 2018.

Bangladesh Water Development Board chief engineer told banglanews, “The project gets final approvals at the ECNEC meeting; we (government) have negotiation with ADB as the bank would sign loan agreement after the approval ADB signed the agreement on Thursday.”

BDST: 1522 HRS, AGU 14, 2014