World Bank offers free tech services to Andhra

The World Bank has offered free technical assistance and advisory services to the Andhra Pradesh government covering areas such as studies on child labour, medium term expenditure frameworks and the working of the subsidised rice scheme.

Both the World Bank and the Department For International Development (DFID) have expressed interest in supporting the various studies required by the state government's departments through grants and technical expertise.

Most of the areas where the World Bank has offered help pertain to agriculture and rural development, indicating a marked departure from earlier priorities.

The list of topics which were identified by the World Bank in a recent wrap up discussion under the chairmanship of the state chief secretary Mohan Kanda for possible assistance include the study on co-operatives and options for voluntary retirement services, study of manpower requirement of the state government, working with the rural development department on strategy for focus groups, studies on crop insurance, rural credit, irrigation issues for policy making apart from the agricultural technology missions proposed by the state government.

The exact amount of money from either the World Bank or the DFID for the study activities are yet to be worked out, officials pointed out.

V S Sampath, principal secretary, finance department, in a communication to the heads of the concerned departments, has requested them to examine whether the departments would be interested in availing the technical assistance and advisory services offered by the World Bank free of cost.

Meanwhile, the representatives of DFID who met finance minister K Rosaiah yesterday have also positively responded to the government's request to provide grants to other such programmes.

Speaking to Business Standard, the finance minister said that the DFID team was particularly very appreciative of the efforts made by the Centre for Good Governance funded by the state government.

Earlier, the DFID had funded the study on the introduction of value added tax (VAT) system by providing the entire Rs 41 crore needed as a grant to the state government.