AIIB Approves $500-mn Loan to India

In News

The Indian government and AIIB signed a COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health Preparedness Project.

In-Detail

• To fight against COVID-19, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has approved $500 million loan support to India for COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health Preparedness Project..
• The AIIB is headquartered at Beijing and the project is the first-ever health sector support to India. The project is co-financed by the World Bank.
• The National Health Mission (NHM), National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the Indian Council of Medical Research together will work on this project.
• The project will cover all the States and Union Territories.
• The project supports the needs of the infected people, at-risk population, medical and emergency personnel and service providers, medical and testing facilities and national and animal health agencies.
• The project will also provide immediate support to enhance disease detection capacities, oxygen delivery systems and medicines among others.
• The project will enable the government to slow and limit the spread of COVID-19 in India.

AIIB

• The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a development multilateral bank.
• It is established by the AIIB Articles of Agreement and is headquartered in Beijing.
• The mission is to improve social and economic outcomes in Asia.
• The operations of the bank started in January 2016 and have 102 approved members worldwide.
• China is the largest contributor to the bank, contributing USD50 million and India is the second-largest contributor country with a contribution of USD 8.4 billion.
• AIIB has created a COVID-19 Crisis Recovery Facility.
• To support the AIIB members from economic, financial and public health pressures and recovery from the crisis, the bank has funded USD5-USD10 billion.
• India is one of the largest beneficiaries of AIIB. The AIIB approved five projects with total loan support of USD 1.074billion.
• The five projects are Bangalore Metro Rail Project, Andhra Pradesh 24×7 power supply, Transmission system strengthening project, Gujarat Rural Road Project and India Infrastructure Fund.

National Health Mission

• Launched in the year 2013, National Health Mission is an amalgamation of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM).
• The objective of the programme is to strengthen health systems in rural and urban areas, especially in reproductive, maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health (RMNCH+A) and communicable and non-communicable diseases.

Conclusion

The AIIB’s timely assistance will help in building a resilient health system and strengthens India’s capacity to effectively manage future disease outbreaks.