BD for quick disbursement of Indian LoC funds

Bangladesh has urged India to take initiatives for quick disbursement of fund to expedite the implementation of the projects under the India-Bangladesh Governmental Lines of Credit (Gol LoC).
Bangladesh made the call at the 2nd meeting of the High-Level Project Monitoring Committee that sat on Sunday (March 27, 2022) to review the LoC projects at Economic Relations Division.
Bangladesh also urged India to review the procurement conditions as it said that Bangladesh to purchase 75 per cent of works, services or goods from the Indian market.
The meeting was co-chaired by Fatima Yasmin, Secretary, Economic Relations Division of the Ministry of Finance and Vikram Doraiswami, High Commissioner of India.  
"Both sides noted with
great satisfaction that significant headway has been made under the GoI LoC framework and that out of approximately US$2 billion contracted so far, the milestone of $1 billion in disbursements is about to be reached within days," Indian High Commission release said on Monday.
Officials of the Economic Relations Division, Prime Minister's Office, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Board of Revenue, Finance Division and Ministry of Home Affairs on the Bangladesh side and High Commission of India and Exim Bank of India from Indian side were present.
Bangladesh is the largest development partner under India's LoC programme, with total commitment under LoCs being $7.862 billion in four LoCs extended to Bangladesh for infrastructure development, Bangladesh has taken up 14 projects under the $2.0 billion LoC-II and 17 other under the $4.5 billion LoC-III.
Both sides discussed the entire spectrum of implementation issues during the meeting, including the need for standardization of the interpretation of GoI LoC processes and procedures by various projects. The two sides reviewed the status of implementation of the decisions taken by the 1st High Level Project Monitoring Committee meeting held on January 3 in 2021.
Projects under both the LoC-II and LoC-III have been struggling in many cases, the meeting observed.
It was also noted that with concerted efforts from both the sides, the pace of disbursements has nearly doubled in one year as $238.68 million has been disbursed in this time, despite the serious challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, the release said.
The two sides reviewed the status of implementation of the decisions taken by the 1st High Level Project Monitoring Committee meeting.
"India-Bangladesh development partnership has grown significantly in recent years. This bilateral mechanism is one of the several joint initiatives to further expedite execution of projects, by addressing procedural issues and suggesting the way forward," Indian High Commission said.
Both sides noted with great satisfaction that significant headway has been made under the GoI LoC framework and that out of approximately  $2 billion contracted so far, the milestone of $1 billion in disbursements is about to be reached within days.
Bangladesh has also focused on issues related with the expediting project preparation and Development Project Proposals (DPP), rationalizing bid qualification criteria, shortening and simplification of bill processing cycles, expediting award of finalized contracts, simplifying visa issuance procedures, however, the committee also identified the next steps to be taken by the Technical Committee, which would meet in due course to discuss issues at an operational level.