ADB approves $300,000 for Bahawalpur rural uplift

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved $300,000 Project Preparatory Technical Assistance (PPTA) for Bahawalpur Rural Development Project phase-II, aiming at augmenting income in the region.
Informed sources told Business Recorder, the project will focus on access to improved roads, electricity, and community-based income generation activities so as to augment income of the people living in the region.
The TA will focus on three components: improvement of core rural infrastructure, promotion of community-based economic and social activities and small-scale infrastructure development, roads and electrification of villages.
The second component will include community mobilisation, capacity-building for enhancing skills, non-formal literacy programme for women, and provision of matching seed investment for income-generating activities, and small-scale infrastructure projects, such as brick pavement of small roads and minor water supply and sewerage facilities.
The third component will include project management and capacity building of district authorities for planning, implementation and operation and maintenance of rural infrastructure including others such as veterinary services.
Sources said Bahawalpur division consists of three districts - Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, and Rahim Yar Khan. Many socio-economic indicators of the area such as literacy ratio, road length per area, village electrification rate, telephone connection rate, rate of population with safe water supply, etc, are below provincial averages.
The region constitutes the cotton-wheat zone, which has the highest poverty incidence: as high as 56 percent among other agro-climatic zones in Pakistan.
The three districts are categorised as "high deprivation area" in the Punjab Poverty Reduction Strategy paper, 2003.
Ongoing Bahawalpur Rural Development Project (BRDP) loan of $38 million was approved on September 26, 1996 and it will be completed on June 30, 2006. It has been successfully addressing lack of rural infrastructures (roads, irrigation, electrification, etc,) and promoting social mobilisation for community-based development in this poor area.
Based on notable achievements of the ongoing BRDP and existence of remaining vast undeveloped rural areas, the government requested the ADB to provide further assistance to finance a follow-on second phase.