World Bank praises Bengal Panchayati Raj institutions

With panchayat polls in West Bengal drawing near, the ruling Trinamool Congress has got a shot in the arm after the World Bank said the performance and service delivery of Panchayati Raj institutions has improved significantly.
"Performance of Gram Panchayats has improved substantially on annual plan preparation, financial management including audit, accounting and financial reporting, absorption capacity of untied grants, project execution and service delivery and ensuring participation, transparency and disclosure of information," a World Bank report said.
In 2010, the state government had signed a loan agreement of USD 200 million, amounting to Rs 920 crore, with the World Bank for a project on institutional strengthening of Gram Panchayats, enabling them to improve service delivery and governance.

"Overall, the project has made significant progress in the past two years and three months of implementation," the report said.
Based on the first full annual performance assessment of 1,000 Gram Panchayats spread over nine districts, 792 of them have already qualified for performance-based block grant of 2013-14.
Elated at the news, state Panchayat minister Subrata Mukherjee told PTI, "They are very pleased with the speed of our work. Now I have requested the World Bank to add another 1,000 GPs in this project. They have invited me to Washington to discuss this. I will go after the panchayat elections are over."

The minister also said the international financial institution has approved another project of around Rs 1,500 crore on implementing a drinking water project in the state.
"It is very rare that they have praised us. Normally they don't do that for developing countries like us," Mukherjee said.