ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday announced that it had approved a $180 million loan to improve water supply and solid waste management services in Punjab’s two rapidly growing cities — Rawalpindi and Bahawalpur.

In a statement, the Manila-based lending agency said the loan was expected to benefit about 1.5 million people through the Developing Resilient Environments and Advancing Municipal Services in Punjab and help curtail excessive groundwater extraction and urban environment degradation by expanding and modernising urban water supply in Rawalpindi and solid waste management systems in Bahawalpur.

“This project will help make municipal services in these two cities more sustainable, resilient, and less carbon-intensive,” said ADB Director General for Central and West Asia Yevgeniy Zhukov.

Published in Dawn, November 29th, 2023