Asian Development Bank | Business Upturn

VA Tech Wabag secures mega order to build Chennai’s city-wide water grid

Business Desk — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 02:50:24 +0000

VA Tech Wabag has secured a significant order from the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board to develop a looped transmission network for Greater Chennai City. The project, funded by the Asian Development Bank, aims to establish a city-wide water grid platform.

The project will address Chennai’s challenges of water scarcity and uneven distribution by creating a ring main system that strengthens the city’s bulk water transmission network. This system will interconnect existing and new infrastructure, enhancing water flow management and resilience to supply disruptions. The project includes developing transmission pipelines, pumping stations, and integrating with a central SCADA system. It is set to be completed in 54 months, followed by a decade of operation and maintenance.

Disclaimer: This article is based on a regulatory filing submitted to the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE).

Tata Power partners with Asian Development Bank for $4.25 billion clean energy projects

Matrika Shukla — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 10:50:42 +0000

Tata Power has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to secure financing for key clean energy projects in India. The agreement, signed during the ongoing COP29 conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, will help fund strategic initiatives such as the 966 MW Solar Wind Hybrid project, Pumped Hydro Storage Project, and other energy transition and decarbonization projects. The total estimated project cost is $4.25 billion.

Dr. Praveer Sinha, CEO & Managing Director of Tata Power, highlighted that this collaboration would advance India’s renewable energy goals, modernize power infrastructure, and support inclusive growth. ADB’s Director General for Private Sector Operations, Suzanne Gaboury, emphasized the shared vision for a low-carbon, sustainable future, promoting energy security across the region.

This partnership is aligned with India’s target to achieve 500 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030, helping reduce reliance on fossil fuels and drive progress toward a cleaner, more resilient energy sector.

ADB approves $400 million loan to support urban reforms in India

Mahita Jain — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 15:24:03 +0000

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has given the green light for a $400 million loan to India with a specific aim: to support urban improvements. This loan is meant to enhance the quality of infrastructure, ensure better public services, and establish more efficient governance systems, according to a statement from the multilateral development bank.

This funding falls under ADB’s Sustainable Urban Development and Service Delivery Program’s Subprogram 2. It is designed to back investments and reforms at the state and urban local body (ULB) levels. The idea is to help India’s cities grow and develop as centers of economic activity. The goal is to create livable cities with inclusive, resilient, and sustainable infrastructure, aligning with ADB Strategy 2030.

“India has recognized the potential for cities to be centres of economic growth and has emphasized the need to make cities livable through inclusive, resilient, and sustainable infrastructure, which is also in line with ADB Strategy 2030,” said Sanjay Joshi, ADB’s principal urban development specialist.

“The national flagship program of Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) 2.0 is targeted for universal access of water supply and sanitation and to ensure urban water security through reducing water losses, recycling treated sewage for non-domestic use, rejuvenation of water bodies, and maintaining sustainable groundwater levels,” Joshi added. This mission, approved by the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) last October, is focused on making Indian cities ‘water secure’ by offering affordable water and sanitation services and advancing functional tap connections across households, along with an emphasis on water conservation.

“The program also envisages integrated urban planning reforms to control urban sprawls and foster systemic and planned urbanisation through enhancing the entire ecosystem of legal, regulatory, and institutional reforms along with capacity building of ULBs and community awareness,” the ADB statement said. “Specifically, ULBs will promote modernisation of building bylaws, land pooling, an urban agglomeration, and comprehensive urban mobility planning through transit-oriented development to help cities become well-planned centres of economic growth,” it added.

ADB anticipates that these measures will make cities credit-worthy by enhancing revenue through reforms like property taxes and user charges, which will improve efficiency and rationalize expenses. This will enable cities to secure innovative financing options such as commercial borrowings, municipal bond issuance, sub-sovereign debts, and public-private partnerships to bridge the significant deficit in urban infrastructure investments.” ADB will continue to provide knowledge and advisory support to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs in program implementation, including monitoring and evaluation,” the ADB said. The bank will focus on lower-income states, which require support in capacity building, institutional strengthening, and policy reforms, it added.

Government may set forth ₹3 trillion power supply reform

Divya Joyce — Wed, 16 Dec 2020 07:12:45 +0000

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman may announce a ₹3 trillion electricity distribution reform programme in the Union budget to help reduce losses and improve the efficiency of power distribution utilities, a government official said.

The Reforms-Linked, Result-Based Scheme for Distribution—initially referred to as the Atal Distribution System Improvement Yojana—was approved by the Public Investment Board, a government body that examines the proposals, earlier this month.

The government is expected to contribute around ₹60,000 crore of the scheme’s corpus, and the rest may be raised from multilateral funding agencies such as the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank, the government official said, requesting anonymity.

The new scheme will also subsume ongoing programmes such as the Integrated Power Development Scheme and the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana, and funds will be released to discoms subject to them meeting reform-related milestones

The scheme is aimed at helping power distribution companies (discoms) trim electricity losses to 12-15% from the present level and gradually narrow the deficit between the cost of electricity and the price at which it is supplied to ‘zero’ by March 2025. The reforms are also aimed at improving the reliability and quality of power supply.

“The Centre’s contribution can be met through the previous commitment of the ongoing schemes. There will be no additional financial burden on the government,” the official said.
The proposed scheme may also have a compulsory prepaid and smart metering component to be implemented across the power distribution chain, including in about 250 million households.

“We are at an early stage of discussion. There are no details that we can share at this stage,” a World Bank spokesperson said in an emailed response.
An ADB spokesperson declined to comment. Queries emailed to the spokespersons of the ministries of finance and power on late Monday evening remained unanswered.

Power discoms are the weakest link in the electricity value chain, plagued by low collection, increase in power purchase costs, inadequate tariff hikes and subsidy disbursements, and mounting dues from government departments.

According to government data, the aggregate loss of discoms was ₹85,000 crore in 2018-19, with the pandemic exacerbating the situation this year. India’s average aggregate technical and commercial loss is currently at 21.4%, one of the highest among the large energy-consuming economies.

The new scheme was discussed with the states during the state power and renewable energy ministers’ conference in July.

“Funds under the scheme would be released in proportion to the achievement by the discoms against the mutually agreed targets in the action plan,” according to a government document reviewed by Mint. The government is also trying to push a plan to privatize discoms in the Union territories and states.

According to the draft Electricity Act (Amendment) Bill to address the issues of India’s power sector solvency, the government has proposed to implement the direct benefit transfer scheme for better targeting of subsidies and instilling financial discipline at discoms.

Sitharaman, in her budget speech in February this year, had urged states and UTs to replace conventional electricity meters with prepaid smart meters in three years to reduce distribution losses, setting the stage for separating the carriage and content operations of electricity discoms.

Carriage refers to the distribution aspect and content to power. Smart meters minimize human intervention in metering, billing and collection, and help prevent theft by identifying loss pockets.

The proposed scheme is expected to work in phases and involves a compulsory smart metering ecosystem across the distribution sector—starting from electricity feeders to the consumer level. Subsequently, loss reduction measures such as separate feeders for agricultural and rural household consumption will be put in place.

According to Emkay Global Financial Services, pending dues of power discoms to generation companies rose 35% from a year earlier in October to ₹1.26 trillion.
Discoms in Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir and Telangana make up about 79% of total dues to power producers, the report said.

ADB allocates $20.3 million to aid developing members’ COVID-19 vaccine production

Akanksha Yadav — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 05:40:39 +0000

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday confirmed the allocation of funds worth $20.3 million to its developing member countries to aid the production of COVID-19 vaccine and to enable smooth, equitable and efficient vaccine distribution. The funds, which were approved earlier this year in April, constitute $20 million from ADB’s Technical Assistance Special Fund (TASF) and $300,000 from the High-Level Technology Fund financed by Japan’s government.

The financial aid will be available for ADB developing members with the intent to support vaccine-related health system assessments and the development of country’s distribution plan to strengthen the people’s capacity to access, introduce, deploy, deliver, and monitor vaccines safely and effectively. The technical assistance aid would help in the identification and promotion of innovative cold chain and vaccine tracking technologies.

“Asia and the Pacific have largely done well to limit the spread of Covid-19. Ensuring access to a safe, effective, and equitable vaccine is the next frontier in the fight against this virus,” Director General of ADB’s Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department, Woochong Um said in a statement.

“With these additional grant resources, ADB can immediately support our developing members to undertake urgent actions, including vaccine system assessments and vaccine deployment strategies, to ensure vaccines are delivered efficiently and fairly. Funds will help members assess and strengthen vaccine cold chain and logistics, infection control, supply and skills of health workers, risk communications, and real-time data capturing and monitoring, ” Woochong Um added.

ADB is in plans to do the implementation of the technical assistance with its partners, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation, in coordination with COVAX, Gavi, the World Bank, and bilateral agencies, among others.

Government appoints new executive directors to Word Bank and Asian Development Bank

Apurva Khairnar — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 13:00:51 +0000

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved appointments of new executive directors to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Monday.

Rajesh Khullar, a 1988 batch Haryana cadre IAS officer has been appointed to the World Bank as executive director and Sameer Kumar Khere, a 1989 batch IAS officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre and additional secretary in the economic affairs department of the finance ministry is appointed as the executive director at Asian Development Bank. The appointments are made for a period of three groups.

Khullar has earlier worked as a joint secretary in the finance ministry and Khare has been in the multilateral division in the finance ministry.

The Asian Development Bank has now appointed Takeo Konishi as its new country director for India. He will oversee the implementation of Asian Development Bank’s India Country Partnership Strategy 2018-2022.

Asian Development Bank appoints Election Commissioner, Ashok Lavasa, as Vice-President

Akul Puri — Wed, 15 Jul 2020 12:37:22 +0000

Ashok Lavasa, the Election Commissioner of India, would be assuming the office of the Vice-President at the Manila based Asian Development Bank. Lavasa’s appointment was announcement by the organization on Wednesday afternoon.

He was supposed to be promoted to the position of the Chief Election Commissioner after the completion of the tenure of the current officer, Sunil Arora. As the Chief Election Commissioner, he would have had the opportunity to conduct assembly elections in the state of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Punjab, Uttrakhand, Manipur and Goa, amongst many other states.

#ADBNEWS: ADB has appointed Ashok Lavasa as Vice-President for Private Sector Operations and Public–Private Partnerships. He will succeed Diwakar Gupta, whose term will end on 31 August.

Read the official announcement ⬇️https://t.co/y6ANNYtcaI

— Asian Development Bank (@ADB_HQ) July 15, 2020

With two years still left to the end of his tenure, Lavasa would be the second Election Commissioner to step down from the poll panel before the completion of his term. Before Lavasa, it was Nagendra Singh who put down his papers to join as a judge in the International Court of Justice at The Hague.

Ashok Lavasa, a retired 1980 batch Indian Administrative Service officer was appointed as the Election Commissioner in the year 2018. Prior to this, he has served at the positions of Finance secretary, Environment secretary and Civil Aviation Secretary. He came in touch with the matters of the Asian Development Bank in the year 2001-02 when he was serving as the Joint Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs.

While succeeding Diwakar Gupta at the Asian Development Bank, Lavasa would be appointed for a period of three years, which can be further extended to two more years. He will be in-charge of the Private Sector Operations and Public Private Partnerships.