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World Bank considers giving loan to Bengal for social welfare schemes
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SME Times News Bureau | 05 Sep, 2021
The World Bank is considering approving a loan of 125 million dollars to
the West Bengal government to help its efforts to strengthen and
empower the vulnerable groups of society. To avail the loan the state
government will have to engage an Independent Verification Agency (IVA)
that will verify the Disbursement Linked Results (DLR).
The World
Bank intends to finance the state government towards the cost of the
"Women's Empowerment and Inclusive Social Protection Programme" and
apply part of the proceeds for consulting services. This will help in
certain welfare schemes launched by the state government like
‘Kanyashree', ‘Rupashree', ‘Lakshmir Bhandar', ‘Swastha Sathi', ‘Widow
Pension' and ‘Old Age Pension'.
The state government has embarked
on a long-term strategy to enhance inclusiveness of its social
protection schemes to address these emerging needs and challenges that
the economy faces. Primarily, the State is focused on widows, who have a
challenging social position with little or no inheritance rights and
high levels of dependence on their children.
The state also
provides disability pensions - a scheme to support affordable
household-community based care, ruling out the need for expensive
institutional care. Apart from that the state also has low labour force
participation of women like Kanyashree and Rupashree.
This will
not only help the state government to help develop the policy framework
and tools for a unified delivery system at the state level but the
proposed operation aims to strengthen the capability of the state to
build an inclusive and efficient social protection system, which will
empower the vulnerable groups. The program is designed for the Widows
and Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe Senior Citizens. This will allow
greater expenditure benchmarking for state schemes and improve citizens'
access by combining IT with frontline case management.
According
to the finance department the state government and the Bank have agreed
to concentrate Bank financing in two key result areas that contribute
to the achievement of Program Developing Objective (PDO). The areas
include strengthening Social Protection Delivery Systems for Vulnerable
Populations and empowering Women and Vulnerable Populations. In order to
provide evidence of continued progress towards the PDO as well as
achievement of intermediate outcomes, the state government and the Bank
have agreed on a set of Disbursement-Linked Indicators (DLIs).
As
a part of the understanding with the Bank the state government will
have to engage an IVA that will verify periodically, through paper and
physical inspection and field survey, the accuracy and quality of
results and eligible disbursement amounts claimed by the state
government in its documentation supporting each disbursement claim.
"This
will be a huge boost to the social welfare schemes. In this pandemic
situation when the country is suffering from an economic slowdown this
will help the state government to carry forward its social welfare
schemes more effectively," a senior finance department official said.
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Customs Exchange Rates |
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