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WB unveils $12b plan to cut poverty in India

AFP, Washington
The World Bank unveiled plans Thursday to lend up to 12 billion dollars to India under a fresh four-year program beginning in 2005 to alleviate poverty in the world's second most populous nation.
Loans of up to three billion dollars a year would be channelled through various projects under the bank's 2005-2008 "Country Strategy for India" endorsed Thursday by its board of executive directors, officials said.
The maximum limit on lending approved under the current three-year program ending 2004 was three billion dollars a year but the Washingtonbased bank only did about 1.5 billion dollars a year, they said.
"I think today was a very strong mandate for us to push towards actually achieving a doubling of actual lending," Michael Carter, the World Bank's country director for India, told AFP after the meeting.
"The mandate we have been given is to scale up our activity to a level of up to 12 billion dollars over the next four years," he said.
World Bank spokeswoman Dale Lautenbach said the loans would be
under two windows offered by the bank -- highly concessional lending aimed largely at "lumpier" infrastructure projects and less concessional lending for social sectors, like education and empowerment projects involving women.
The new strategy was formulated over the last year after intense discussions with the Indian government and with inputs from civil society, the media and private sector through a phased consultation process.
"The challenge for the Country Strategy is to leverage the Bank's diverse resources, including both knowledge and lending, to help improve the quality of life for some of the world's poorest citizens and to help India move closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals," the bank said in a statement.
Launched by the United Nations in 2000, the millennium goals are to halve poverty in the world by 2015.
With a one billion population, India houses over one quarter of the world's poor people and grapples with massive infrastructure demands.
Average incomes remain low and, according to the bank, there has been little improvement on some critical
social indicators.
"Survival rates for young mothers and children under the age of five are stagnant, and HIV/AIDS is spreading quickly, putting the country in danger of a growing epidemic," it said.
Carter said India also faced a "substantial disparity of opportunity, particularly in education, health, and economic prospects of women and other "vulnerable groups."
In addition, a growing gulf had emerged between Indian states, with poverty being increasingly geographically concentrated, he said.
"Looking at these disparities, what emerges is a picture of India occupying two worlds simultaneously -- in the first, economic reform and social changes have begun to take hold and growth has had an impact on people's lives, opportunities have opened up.
"In the other, citizens appear almost completely left behind by public services, employment opportunities, and brighter prospects."
Carter said bridging the gap "between these two Indias" was perhaps the greatest challenge facing the country.