India and the World Bank on Tuesday signed two financing agreements aimed at reducing vulnerability of coastal communities from cyclones and hydro meteorological hazards.
The National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project-I (NCRMP-I) and NCRMP-II, valued at $104 million and $308.4 million respectively, will help eight Indian states -- with coastlines on either sides of the peninsula -- improve their access to emergency shelter, evacuation against wind storms and flooding and storm surge in high risk areas.
The states are Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Odisha on the eastern side on the Bay of Bengal coast, and Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra on the Arabian Sea coast, a finance ministry statement said.
The projects will empower the states to effectively plan for and respond to disasters.
Both projects consist of four components -- early warning dissemination system (EWDS) and capacity building for coastal communities, cyclone risk mitigation infrastructure, technical assistance for national and state level capacity building on disaster risk management and project management and implementation support, the statement said.
NCRMP-II will also finance technical assistance for strengthening multi-hazard risk management at the national level and enhance the quality of available information on multi-hazard risk to enable decision-making across the nation.
At the national level, the projects will be implemented by the home ministry through the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) while at the state level, the projects will be executed by disaster management authorities.
Government officials from the benefiting states signed the agreement with John Blomquist, programme leader and World Bank's acting country director in India.
