Japan commits Rs3,500-cr in ODA loan to fight India’s Covid-19 crisis
01 Sep 2020
The Japanese government has committed Official Development Assistance of 50 billion yen (approx Rs3,500 crore) for India’s Covid-19 Crisis Emergency Response Support. Additional secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs CS Mohapatra, and Japanese Ambassador Suzuki Satoshi signed the documents.
The loan for a health sector programme of the Government of India will be used to fight the Covid-19 crisis in India.
This programme aims to support India’s efforts in fighting Covid-19 and to prepare the health system to manage future epidemics and also to improve the resilience of India’s health systems against infectious diseases.
The programme includes a grant assistance of JPY 1 billion (approx Rs70 crore) from the government of Japan which can be used for providing medical equipment to strengthen the public health and medical system in India. This will strengthen the health care facilities for managing critical and serious patients suffering from Covid-19 infection.
India and Japan have had a long and fruitful history of bilateral development cooperation since 1958. In the last few years, the economic cooperation between India and Japan has strengthened and grown into strategic partnership. This further consolidates and strengthens the Strategic and Global Partnership between India and Japan.