Under the Asian Development Bank-funded iROAD 1 and iROAD 2 project, 140 civil contracts have been awarded for the improvement and maintenance of 6,250 km of rural roads and 250 national roads, Cabinet Spokesperson, Mass Media Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardena said.
The Minister said this at the Cabinet decision notification news conference held at the Government Information Department yesterday (9).
So far, 4,800 km of rural roads and 300 km of national roads have been completed and the work of these projects is uninterrupted.
In order to implement the iROAD 1 programme for the fifth phase of a loan amount of 243 million US dollars and under the iROAD 2 project for the fourth phase of the fourth phase of the iROAD 2 project, negotiations and agreements were held with the Asian Development Bank to take further actions. Minister Gunawardena mentioned that the Cabinet paper submitted by him as the Highways Minister was approved. The Minister said that under the current financial crisis, new roads will not be built on a large scale, but the Asian Development Bank will provide foreign aid under concessional terms. He said that it is important.
