World Bank has approved 250 million US dollars loan for Jhelum and Tawi Flood Recovery Project in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). The project will be funded by loan credit from International Development Association (IDA), a World Bank’s concessionary with a maturity of 25 years, including a 5 year grace period. About Jhelum and Tawi Flood Recovery Project The recovery project will play important role in reconstruction of flood-affected public infrastructure. It includes roads, bridges and public infrastructure.
It will also strengthen the capacity of state government to respond and better manage natural disasters in future. It will focus on 20 districts of state and help to rebuild damaged public buildings such as schools, hospitals, higher education buildings, fire stations, selected block and district offices. It also seeks to strengthen and reinforce existing weak and vulnerable flood control infrastructure. The investments will primarily include rehabilitation and renovation of storm water pumping stations in several areas. The project will also focus on disaster risk mitigation in state and strengthen the capacity of government entities in disaster risk management. It will also help in preparation of a Hydro-Meteorological Resilience Action Plan to enhance preparedness and achieve resilient recovery. The action plan will focus on river morphology study for some key rivers impacted by the disaster, extreme weather events and urban vulnerability assessment. Background In September 2014, continuous unprecedented heavy heavy rainfall had caused Jhelum, Chenab and Tawi rivers, their tributaries to flow above the danger mark. It had flooded the catchment areas, particularly low lying ones for more than two weeks in the state which had severely affected livelihoods and basic infrastructure in the state.