World Bank \$ 4.63 mn loan for Bihar rural livelihood project

New Delhi, Aug 9 (UNI) India today signed a Credit Agreement for a 4.63 million dollars for the Bihar Rural Livelihoods Project-- 'Jeevika'-- with the World Bank.

The Agreement was signed here by Mr Madhusudan Prasad, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Finance on behalf of Government of India, Mr Navin Kumar, Principal Secretary, Department of Finance on behalf of the Government of Bihar and Ms. Isabel Guerrero, Country Director(India) on behalf of the World Bank.

The Project aims to improve rural livelihoods in the State through organising institutions of the poor in 776 village Panchayats covering 4,000 villages. These are in the districts of Nalanda, Gaya, Muzzafarpur, Madhubani, Khagaria, and Purnea.

"Jeevika' is expected to directly benefit about 2.9 million people belonging to 5,90,000 households. The loan is by way of IDA credit.

The project will help organise women from poor and disadvantaged households into vibrant and self managed institutions of the poor (Self-Help Groups). These groups will be federated into village organization, which will receive project investments for various activities through a participatory micro-planning process.

The village organisations in turn will be integrated as higher-level apex community-based organisations that will take up livelihood enhancement and income-generating activities, through developing partnerships and linkages with market institutions.

The project will also partner with the public sector banking system and private micro-finance institutions to enhance the flow of credit and insurance services to the poor, thereby reducing the burden of high cost debt that the poor in Bihar suffer from. The project will finance Community Investment Funds, designed to transfer financial and technical resources to the community organisations on a demand-driven basis through a participatory micro-planning process. The village organisations are expected to use this resource as a revolving fund to finance various economic and social activities through the SHGs in the villages.

UNI