The Asian Development Bank ( ADB) would extend 1 billion U.S. dollars assistance to India for water resources management, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said Sunday.

Under the assistance to be extended over four years, 20,000 water bodies will be restored benefiting 1.5 million hectares of land, the finance minister said ahead of ADB's 39th annual general meeting in Hyderabad in south Indian on May 3-6.

Chidambaram said ADB would extend a total of 7.3 billion U.S. dollars funding to India over the next three years. The overall lending to India would go up from 2.25 billion U.S. dollars in 2006 to 2.45 billion U.S. dollars in 2007 and further to 2.65 billion U.S. dollars in 2008. Since 1986, ADB had so far extended loans totaling 14 billion U.S. dollars, he said.

"ADB played a key role in mitigating poverty in many regions of Asia. It has been an important partner in our march to progress and would continue to play an important role in future," Indo- Asian News Service quoted Chidambaram as saying.

India is confident that the ADB meeting will provide an opportunity to global financial players to see first hand the India story of accelerating multifaceted and inclusive growth and to carry it back to every part of the world, he added.

About 3,000 delegates from 66 Asian countries including 40 finance ministers, representatives of multilateral development banks, investment bankers and NGO representatives will attend the ADB meeting.

Source: Xinhua