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World Bank to double assistance to India
Jaipur, Mar 21: Impressed with India`s reform programme, the World Bank will double its lending to India to three billion dollars in 2005-06 and hike it to two billion dollars in the next fiscal.
Jaipur, Mar 21: Impressed with India's reform programme, the World Bank will double its lending to India to three billion dollars in 2005-06 and hike it to two billion dollars in the next fiscal.
''The assistance will be substantially stepped up,'' Miachel Carter, World Bank country director for India, told mediapersons here.
The lending is to be doubled to three billion dollars in 2005-06, up from 1.5 billion dollars in 2003-04. Carter said most of the increased assistance will be in the form of loans from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) loans.
The mix of loan component will change gradually. From the present ratio of 50:50 between IBRD and International Development Agency (IDA) assistance, it will go down to 40:40 in 2005-06. While IDA loans entail a very low rate of interest and are regarded as a grant, IBRD assistance involves harder rates of interest, even though they may be lower than the market interest rate.
Carter said the new government, which assumes office after the general elections, will need to push through the unfinished agenda of second generation reforms. ''We are witness to India's growing prosperity and its impressive reform programme,'' he said. The areas where assistance is to be hiked includes World Bank programmes in certain states. These are education schemes in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, a water scheme in Maharashtra, a health care programme in Rajasthan and highway development programmes in Uttar Pradesh. The two districts that will be covered under the by-pass programme are Dehradun and Aligarh.
Carter was recently in the Pink City to address a three-day conclave of accountants, organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
Bureau Report
The lending is to be doubled to three billion dollars in 2005-06, up from 1.5 billion dollars in 2003-04. Carter said most of the increased assistance will be in the form of loans from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) loans.
The mix of loan component will change gradually. From the present ratio of 50:50 between IBRD and International Development Agency (IDA) assistance, it will go down to 40:40 in 2005-06. While IDA loans entail a very low rate of interest and are regarded as a grant, IBRD assistance involves harder rates of interest, even though they may be lower than the market interest rate.
Carter said the new government, which assumes office after the general elections, will need to push through the unfinished agenda of second generation reforms. ''We are witness to India's growing prosperity and its impressive reform programme,'' he said. The areas where assistance is to be hiked includes World Bank programmes in certain states. These are education schemes in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, a water scheme in Maharashtra, a health care programme in Rajasthan and highway development programmes in Uttar Pradesh. The two districts that will be covered under the by-pass programme are Dehradun and Aligarh.
Carter was recently in the Pink City to address a three-day conclave of accountants, organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
Bureau Report