MOSCOW, December 14 (RIA Novosti) – The World Bank has approved a $82 million loan for Uzbekistan to finance improvements in the public water supply services, the World Bank’s Uzbek office said on Friday.
The Alat and Karakul Water Supply Project will improve the coverage, quality and efficiency of the public water supply service in Bukhara region’s Alat and Karakul districts, benefiting almost 220,000 people, the World Bank said.
Nearly 80 percent of residents in those districts still live in rural areas with no piped water supply, relying on unsafe water drawn from irrigation channels and wells or bought at high cost from tanker trucks, according to Central Asian News Service.
The project will combine the rehabilitation of existing water production, transmission and distribution infrastructure with the development of new networks to cover unserved rural areas.
Four main components of the project include Improvement of Water Supply Infrastructure ($108.6 million), Institutional Strengthening and Capacity Building ($2.21 million), Studies for Future Investments ($0.37 million) and Project Management ($2.34 million).