Aiding Acrimony ; the World Bank's Decision to Put On Hold Loans of Over $1 Billion has Irked the Upa Government and Jeopardised Its Rural Health Programmmes
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Summary
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram is not known to mince words. Last week, frustrated with the World Bank management's intransigence, he dispatched a stiffly worded letter to the institution's President Paul Wolfowitz. In his typical no-nonsense style, he expressed the Government's discomfort at the Bank's decision to put on hold indefinitely a raft of big-ticket health sector projects in India on grounds of possible corruption in an earlier loan.
The minister argued that the shortage of funds for the National Rural Health Mission, pioneered by the UPA Government, would affect future programmes on the eradication of polio and tuberculosis. A senior Finance Ministry official went a step further and said, "It is not the money. We are capable of funding the project worth about Rs 4,000 crore from other sources, but we are keen to clear our position."See the full content of this document
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Aiding Acrimony ; the World Bank's Decision to Put On Hold Loans of Over $1 Billion has Irked the Upa Government and Jeopardised Its Rural Health Programmmes
It is probably for the first time in 62 years that the relationship between India and the World Bank has soured to this extent. It is not that India cannot fund its social spend. Fact is World Bank loans are for 30 years, come at Libor+2 and inculcate discipline.
The root cause of the acrimony is a procurement order for contraceptives and medicines given to Hindustan Latex, Pure Pharma Limited and Nestor Pharmaceuticals during the first phase of the World Bank-supported Reproductive and Child Health Care (RCH-I), about which th...See the full content of this document
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