Second Integrated Road Investment Program (Tranche 5)

approved

The investment program will improve the accessibility of the road network in Sri Lanka's rural areas and thereby increase the involvement of the rural population in nationwide economic and social development. It will upgrade and maintain about 3,000 kilometers (km) of rural access roads to an all-weather standard; rehabilitate and maintain to a good condition about 400km of national roads in Eastern, Northern, Uva, and Western provinces; and improve the capacity of road agencies with respect to safeguards, road safety, maintenance, research capacity, and road design and construction. Tranche 1 will finance the first slice of the projects.Given the various external challenges experienced during the MFF implementation, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 economic crisis, which delayed program implementation and necessitated a reduction in the originally-envisaged amount of the tranche 5 loan, it is proposed to accordingly change the scope of the MFF by recalibrating the balance of activities for rural and national roads. To ensure that the scope of tranche 5 is sufficiently realistic to achieve a well-ordered completion of the MFF within its availability period, targets for construction and upgrading of overall roads under the MFF, and associated road maintenance targets, will be revised. It is proposed to change the target for rural access roads: (i) the target for rural access roads from 3,400 km to 2,958 km; (ii) the target for national roads from 340 km to 397 km ; and (iii) consequential revision of maintenance work indicators.