Bihar Kosi Basin Development Project

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The development objective of the Bihar Kosi Basin Development Project for India is to enhance resilience to floods and increase agricultural production and productivity in the targeted districts in the Kosi river basin, and to enhance Bihar’s capacity to respond promptly and effectively to an eligible crisis or emergency. The project comprises of five components. The first component, improving flood risk management objective is to increase the capacity of the water resources department (WRD) to manage flood risk and to decrease vulnerability to floods in the Kosi river basin. It consists of following two sub-components: (i) reinforcement of flood control infrastructure; and (ii) support to strengthen institutional capacity to manage flood risk. The second component, enhancing agricultural productivity and competitiveness will work with organized farmers to increase agricultural production (which includes crops, horticulture, livestock, and fisheries) and productivity by expanding their access to and adoption of innovative and climate-resilient farm technologies and practices (including irrigation) and extending their linkages to market infrastructure. It consists of following three sub-components: (i) intensification and diversification of agricultural production systems; (ii) strengthening of agricultural value chains; and (iii) institutional development for market-led extension. The third component, augmenting connectivity objective is to improve farmers’ access to markets through the expansion of the local road network that connects rural roads to the main road network that improves connectivity of habitations to the market centers. It consists of following three sub-components: (i) construction of roads; (ii) institutional strengthening activities at rural works department; and (iii) construction of bridges. The fourth component, contingent emergency response will draw resources from the unallocated expenditure category and or allow the Government of Bihar (GoB) to request the Bank to re-categorize and reallocate financing from other project components to partially cover emergency response and recovery costs. The fifth component, implementation support will finance activities required for project implementation that will include incremental operating costs of Bihar aapada punarwas evam punarnirman society (BAPEPS) and the implementing agencies (IAs).