PESHAWAR: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will provide soft loan to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government for construction and rehabilitation of all highways in the province.

In this regard, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed during the meeting of senior ADB officials with adviser to the chief minister for communication and works Akbar Ayub here at the Civil Secretariat on Tuesday.

A statement issued here said that the ADB would initially provide $150 million for the reconstruction of provincial highways up to 300 kilometres.

The programme will be later expanded to $250 million on successful and satisfactory execution of the first phase. Basic facilities for travellers will also be arranged alongside these highways to make the journey comfortable.

The ADB delegation was led by Jaingbo Ning while the country officer Pawan Karkprn also accompanied him. C&W secretary Mohammad Asif Khan, managing director Pakhtunkhwa Highway Authority Engineer Uzair Khan, director engineering Ejaz Khan and other representatives were also present on this occasion.

Uzair Khan gave a detailed briefing to the bank officials about the road networks and their condition as well as responded to the queries of the delegates. The ADB team said that the required loan would be provided to the KP government as soon as possible to enable the province to rehabilitate its road infrastructure with seismic and GPS supports.

They also said that the financial and technical assistance would be further extended on improved performance of the engineering team of the provincial government.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2016