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IDF pledges aid for India's poverty-reduction plan

The India Development Forum, or IDF, which met in Paris after a gap of two years ended its deliberations pledging strong support to India's poverty-reduction programme but without indicating the resumption of World Bank funding for the country's infrastructure projects suspended after its May 1998 nuclear tests.

A press release issued at the end of the meeting Wednesday said the achievement of the international ambition to halve global poverty by 2015 would depend critically on India's performance where 40 per cent of the world's poor live.

The IDF participants agreed, in particular, that state-level reforms were critical for accelerated poverty-reduction in India.

Partners to this challenge were brought together under the chairpersonship of Mieko Nishimizu, World Bank vice-president, South-Asia region. E A S Sarma, secretary, economic affairs, Ministry of Finance, led the Indian delegation.

Delegates from 21 partner countries and international organisations attended the meeting.

The release said the two-day forum broke new ground by focusing on the theme of 'Poverty: The State Dimension'. ''This reflects the important developmental role of India's state governments, which have far-reaching constitutional responsibilities in the basic infrastructural and social sectors.''

The Indian delegation to the forum included top officials, who welcomed the attention from international agencies on reform and poverty-reduction programmes at the states-level.

"To prevent a further widening of disparities between India's states and to speed poverty reduction, it is essential that reforms take hold in all states,'' it added.

Delegates called on the Indian government to intensify its leadership in this regard. At the macro-economic level, the forum recognised the impressive progress that India had made.

Deep concern was expressed over the worsening fiscal position of both the central and state governments in India. At the central level, almost half of all revenues were consumed by interest payments.

And in an increasing number of states, salaries, pensions and interest payments more than exhaust revenue proceeds.

There was a widespread consensus on all sides that India had to take measures to rein in the fiscal deficit, cut subsidies, control establishment costs, and raise additional tax revenues. Again, it was agreed that concerted action would be needed from both the central and state governments.

UNI

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