Indian High Commissioner Gopal Baglay and Treasury Secretary S.R. Attygalle signing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to implement High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP) under Indian grant assistance in the presence of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees on Tuesday.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to implement High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP) under Indian grant assistance was signed between India and Sri Lanka in the presence of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa at Temple Trees on Tuesday.
The extension of the ongoing MoU on HICDP for another five years had been announced during the Virtual Bilateral Summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa on September 26, 2020.
Under the High Impact Community Development Projects, a total of 64 projects using a total outlay of approx Rs. 20 billion as aid from Government of India have been implemented in Sri Lanka.
As per the new framework MoU for the third phase, signed on Tuesday, individual developmental projects costing upto Rs. 300 million in social sectors such as health, education, water, sanitation, agriculture etc. can be taken up in Sri Lanka. The total outlay of all such projects at any given time can be upto Rs. 5 billion.
It had been also agreed during the Virtual Bilateral Summit to deepen and broadbase the HICDP projects currently undertaken in each of Sri Lanka’s 25 districts.
These projects shall relate chiefly to socio-economic development, livelihood support, conservation of environmental and cultural heritage, empowerment of women, child welfare and facilitation of community life, particularly through the creation of infrastructure in the education, health, agriculture or community development sectors. The Ministry of Finance is the nodal Ministry for implementing the HICDP scheme on the Sri Lankan side.
Presently, 21 projects covering all provinces viz., Northern, North-Central, North-Western, Western, Southern, Central, Uva, Sabaragamuwa and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka are being undertaken under the MoU. They include construction of primary schools and colleges, vocational training institutes, universities, hospitals, rural sanitation, cultural heritage, rain water harvesting, social housing for poor, agricultural warehousing, tourism and civil aviation infrastructure support.
The HICDP scheme has been designed to contribute to the developmental aspirations and needs of Sri Lanka. Further, all overheads and administrative costs for implementing these projects, as indeed any other projects under Government of India grant, are absorbed separately by Government of India and are not included in the project outlay.
The scheme is entirely on-budget and implemented through various line Ministries of Sri Lanka, thereby indicating the depth of our development cooperation with Sri Lanka.
