The Hindu Business Line : Poor delivery mechanism affecting welfare schemes: IBRD official

THOUGH the Indian Government's programmes for improving access to services for the poor were well intended, the outreach has too often been constrained by procedures and administrative complexities pertaining to targeting subsidies, according to the World Bank's India Country Director, Mr Michael Carter.

Inaugurating a workshop on `Sustainable private financing of community infrastructure in India,' jointly organised by the Bank and the UK-based DfiD (Department for International Development) and supported by the Government of India here, Mr Carter suggested some remedies "if we have to improve outreach and sustain interventions." Thus, he said, there is a need to ensure timely access to programmes through simplified institutions and processes, leverage State resources to extend coverage and make clearer linkages between local real estate policies, such as those addressed by the Urban Reform Initiative Fund (URIF) and rationalise subsidies so that they are better targeted to the poor.

He said in the context of communities' access to infrastructure financing, there is an added dimension because it is a public good and would need an interface or partnership with local governments. Mr Carter remarked that over the next 25 years the number of people living in Indian cities would increase by about 230 million, almost doubling in size. So, over roughly the next generation, India would be expected to provide services to a group of new city residents that is about as large as the current urban population of the US.

As India's population continues to urbanise to achieve sustained growth, it is critical that there would be improved services delivery and governance.

Mr Carter noted that improving access to services for the poor is one of the shared goals of development community and the Government having been embodied in the Millennium Development Goals of reducing poverty and improving access to basic environmental services.

In her observations, the Chief of DfiD, Ms Charlotte Seymour-Smith, while thanking the Government for entrusting the task to it as also the World Bank to prepare an approach paper on sustainable private financing of community infrastructure in India, said the study brought out some important findings.

First, the inadequacy of state resources to provide meaningful and sustainable access to basic services for all at least in the short run, even as substantial private capital in India remains untapped. Second, the disproportionately high costs of `non-access to basic services' borne by poor communities, both directly and indirectly, and third, the growing realisation of nations across the world and more so in India that poor communities are capable of planning and managing their own services.

Finally, she said, poor communities have an exceptionally impressive record in servicing debts even as this does not get adequately reflected in the portfolios of financial institutions.

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