As part of its exercise to formulate Country Assistance Strategy Programme, a five member team of the World Bank today held discussion with the senior officials of the Orissa government.
Possible areas of co-operation like improving the service delivery, poverty reduction, drainage and water supply, skill improvement, expanding irrigation facilities in the state were discussed in the meeting.
Talking to the media after the meeting V J Ravishankar, lead economist (poverty reduction and economic development) said, considering the share of Orissa in the World bank assistance and the poor people, various ways and areas for enhancing the co-operation were discussed.
“Currently the World Bank assistance to Orissa is about 3 percent of the total lending to the country. We are looking at opportunities for doing more in Orissa”, Ravichandran said.
The World Banks involvement in various project in operation or which are going to be implemented in next few months in the state are about $450 million.
He said, the state government will very shortly send the proposal to the Government of India (GoI) about the third tranche of assistance for the Orissa Socio Economic Development Programme (OSEP). It will be sent to the Bank by the GoI after which the Bank will depute a team to hold negotiation with the state government officials.
Official sources said, Orissa is one of the focus states for the World Bank. The visit of the team was essentially to take stock of the situation and deliberate on specific areas of co-operation.
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The projects assisted or which are in the advance stage of implementation by the World Bank in Orissa include Rs 39 crore National Hydrology Project, Rs 400 crore TRIPTI, Rs 1439 crore Orissa State Road Project (OSRP) and Rs 3493 crore Orissa Water Sector Improvement Project with drainage decongestion.
The Orissa Water Sector Improvement Project aims to create irrigation facilities for about 2.98 lakh hectares of land. The state government suggested the bank to take up projects in areas like anti-poverty programme, skill improvement and capacity building as future course of action.
The Orissa government will soon seek the third tranche of the World Bank loan for Orissa Socio Economic Development Programme (OSEP).The state finance department is finalising a concept note specifying the need for the loan, sectors for investment, pattern of the utilisation of the loan, fiscal restructuring and priority sector investments.
Orissa availed $ 225 million under the second tranche of World Bank loan in August 2006.While the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) component was $ 150 million, the International Development Association (IDA) component was $75 million.
Though the size of the third tranche of the loan to be sought by the state government is not yet finalised, it may be closer to $250 million, sources added.