World Bank (India)

The World Bank Group’s Strategy for India for FY 2009-2012 is closely aligned with the country’s objectives as outlined in its 11th Five Year Plan. The Bank uses lending and analytical work to help India achieve its goals. Between 2009 and 2012, the Bank lent around $19 billion to the country. As of March 2012, total net commitments stood at $23.4 billion (IBRD $15.6 billion, IDA $7.8 billion) across 75 projects.

The Bank is also increasingly engaged in agriculture and rural development. In fact, with $2 billion in new lending in FY12 for seven operations, the World Bank’s agriculture and rural development portfolio in India is by far the largest such Bank program worldwide in absolute dollar terms. It includes the Bank’s support for India’s newly launched National Rural Livelihoods Mission, one of the world’s largest community-based rural poverty reduction programs that aims to reach almost a quarter of India’s population. Other key areas of support in agriculture include helping boost productivity and farmer incomes through agricultural research and technology dissemination, improving agricultural water management, strengthening marketing and value chains, as well as developing the dairy sector. A total of 24 operations are under implementation in India, with total commitments of $5.8 billion.

The Bank continues to fund the government’s financial sector reform program, support rural credit cooperatives – which are crucial for channeling agricultural credit to farmers – and assist improvements in the country’s agricultural insurance program. It also supports the scaling up of sustainable and responsible microfinance to under-served parts of the country.

Under the infrastructure portfolio, the World Bank is supporting the development of rail and road transportation. This includes the greater movement of freight through environment-friendly rail, better road connectivity through upgraded national and state highways, and an expansion of the rural road network. The Bank is also helping streamline urban transportation in India’s premier megacity of Mumbai as well as a few other cities, besides helping improve the delivery of urban services in a few large states. Moreover, to help India meet its huge energy needs, it is supporting the development of clean hydropower, together with the improved transmission and distribution of power throughout the country.

In education, the Bank program is focused on helping the country bring the hardest-to-reach children into primary school and improve learning. As more children complete primary school, the Bank has recently extended support for secondary education. In addition, to prepare the youth for a rapidly changing job market, the World Bank is supporting improvements in the quality of engineering and vocational education in selected states /educational institutions.

In health, ongoing Bank projects support national programs for disease control – such as kala-azar, polio and malaria, HIV/AIDS, and TB, besides strengthening health systems in the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh. In rural water supply and sanitation, the World Bank has supported the evolution of models for efficient services through decentralized planning and execution, and the recovery of operational and management costs from rural communities.

Currently, the World Bank is in the process of articulating a vision for an environmentally sustainable future for India (India 2030). Its $1 billion National Ganga River Basin Project supports the government in cleaning up and conserving the iconic river. The Bank is also supporting India in developing new models for conserving biodiversity while improving rural livelihoods, and supports efforts to protect India’s fragile coasts.

Moreover, Bank support to India’s low-income states is on the rise to help them develop into attractive investment destinations. In Bihar, for instance, the World Bank is supporting the development of rural livelihoods and helping reduce the state’s vulnerability to floods.