PRESS
INFORMATION BUREAU
GOVERNMENT
OF INDIA
*****
GOVERNMENT
OF INDIA AND WORLD BANK SIGN US$130 MILLION
AGREEMENT
TO IMPROVE LIVELIHOODS FOR 300,000 VILLAGE
HOUSEHOLDS
IN NORTH EASTERN STATES
New Delhi:
Pausha 30, 1933
January 20, 2012
The
Government of India and the World Bank today signed an IDA credit of US$ 130
million to finance the Government of India's (GOI) efforts to empower rural
communities in the growth-deficient North East (NE) region to improve their
livelihood opportunities.
The North East Rural Livelihoods Project
(NERLP) will enhance the livelihoods of the rural poor, especially women,
unemployed youth and the severely disadvantaged in eight districts of the four
participating states- Aizawl and Lunglei in Mizoram; Peren and Tuensang in
Nagaland; South, West and 15 Panchayat wards of East District in Sikkim; and
West and North Districts in Tripura.
Despite its rich natural resources and
relatively good human development indicators, the North East (NE) region lags
behind the rest of India in important parameters of growth. Almost 35 percent of its predominantly rural
population lives below the poverty line; agricultural productivity is low; and
high school drop-out rates and lack of skills have led to high unemployment
among the youth. This low-growth scenario is exacerbated by problems of
geographical inaccessibility, protracted insurgency in some areas, and
recurring natural disasters. Recognizing the urgent need to put economic growth
on track in the NE, the Government of India developed the North Eastern Region
(NER) Vision 2020, endorsed by all NE states.
The Vision envisages using a partnership-approach with all relevant
stakeholders to make interventions responsive to people’s needs and aspirations
for a better quality of life.
The agreements for the North East Rural
Livelihoods Project (NERLP) were signed by Mr. Venu Rajamony, Joint Secretary,
Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, on behalf of the
Government of India;Mr. D. L. Wankhar,
Project Director on behalf of
the North East Rural Livelihoods
Project; and Mr. Roberto Zagha, World Bank Country Director in
India.
The Project seeks to develop an
institutional platform for the communities, which will help them link up with
the private sector, public sector, and civil society and to acquire the
institutional, technical, and financial capacity needed for improving their
livelihoods. Global development experience shows that absolute poverty can be
overcome by equipping a member of the household (especially a youth) with
employable skills. A separate activity for skills development and job placement
has thus been included in the project to ensure that such opportunities are
available to the rural poor. Some livelihood opportunities envisaged under the
Project include natural resource management activities such as forest
management, nontimber forest produce storage and processing, horticulture,
preservation of riverine fishes, water harvesting and recharging of
ground/surface water in the villages; community-based infrastructure activities
like upgrading of small agricultural link roads, micro hydro-power schemes,
wind-cum-solar mills, to name a few.
The Project comprises four main
components (i) Social Empowerment; (ii) Economic Empowerment; (iii) Partnership
Development and (iv) Project Management. The first component seeks to help
rural communities to create sustainable institutions so that they can manage
common activities around microfinance, livelihoods and natural resource
management. The second component will
provide funds to the community institutions to undertake various livelihood
activities, as well as provide self-entrepreneurship opportunities to
unemployed youth. To enable this, the
Project with help develop partnerships with various formal financial
intermediaries - such as microfinance institutions, commercial banks,
development financial institutions such as National Bank for Agriculture and
Rural Development (NABARD) and Small Industries Development Bank of India
(SIDBI), and specialized funding agencies such as North East Development
Finance Institution (NEDFI) – and with the private sector and civil society to
allow rural communities to access technical and marketing support. The project management
component facilitates the implementation, coordination, monitoring and
evaluation, learning and quality enhancement efforts of the project.
The credit from the International
Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s concessionary lending arm, has
a final maturity of 25 years, including 5 year grace period.
DSM/SS/GN
Source: Finance Ministry
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