World Bank chief to look at funding needs

World Bank President James D Wolfensohn, who will start his two-day visit to India tomorrow, will sit through a series of presentations by various infrastructure-related ministries to identify areas that need additional funding.

The presentations will be made on Thursday, during his meeting with Planning Commission officials.

Wolfensohn's India visit assumes significance in the wake of Finance Minister P Chidambaram's deliberations on the need to step up multilateral aid to developing nations at the IMF-World Bank meeting in Washington last month.

The World Bank has already agreed to double its assistance to India to $3 billion from this year.

India is seeking to double the assistance it receives from the World Bank to $4 billion annually to fund infrastructure development.

Chidambaram is expected to take up the matter with Wolfensohn during the visit.

Officials said at present India received assistance of around $1.8 billion annually from the World Bank's International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) in addition to around $1 billion from the Asian Development Bank and $500 million from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), a large chunk of which was used for infrastructure development.

They added that a part of the IBRD assistance was used for other projects that generated some economic returns.

PowerGrid Corporation's proposal for a Rs 5,000 crore assistance for implementing the Rs 70,000 crore national grid was among the major infrastructure projects in need of funds, they added.

Wolfensohn will also meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit.

The visit is aimed at monitoring Bank-funded schemes and discussing with government officials ways to step up lending to the country.

Wolfensohn will visit the World Bank-supported 'diversified agricultural support project' in Uttar Pradesh and the 'education for all project' site in Delhi on Thursday.