THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Local Government and Service Delivery Project (KLGSDP), the project to create capital assets in 978 panchayats and 60 municipalities of the state, was launched on Monday.
The $260 million (approximately Rs 1,195.80 crore) project will be implemented in four years.Announcing the signing of the loan agreement between representatives of the World Bank, Union Government and the state government, Panchayat Minister M K Muneer said this project would help sort out complaints about the mismatch in project formation and implementation in the grassroot.
"A microlevel monitoring of the project implementation will be part of this," outgoing LSG principal secretary S M Vijayanand said.The lion share of the fund, `1097.56 crore, has been earmarked as performance grant. "The performance grant will be spent for creation, maintenance and operation of capital assets used in service delivery. It will provide grama panchayats and municipalities with additional discretionary funds for expanded local investment in in a manner which will accelerate the strengthening of their institutional capacity," Muneer said.Muneer said the state will get 30 years to repay the loan at an interest rate of 0.75%. The repayment will start only after 10 years of starting the project. The agreement was signed by Dept of Economic Affairs joint secretary Venu Rajamony, LSG principal secretary James Varghese and World Bank programme manager Roland Lomme.
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