New Delhi: The World Bank and India today signed a US$125 million loan to improve access to social protection services by the poor and vulnerable groups in West Bengal, the Ministry of Finance stated here today. The governments of India and West Bengal are signatories to this loan disbursed by the World Bank through its International Bank for Reconstruction and Development [IBRD].
The project focuses on vulnerable groups such as women, tribal and scheduled caste, the elderly, and people living in the state’s disaster-prone coastal region.
The Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance said, “This project will build capabilities of West Bengal government to expand coverage and access to social support and targeted services for poor and vulnerable groups.”
The project will help West Bengal to expand coverage, access to social support, and deliver cash transfers to vulnerable people through a social registry over the next four years.
West Bengal runs more than 400 programmes that provide social support, care services, and jobs. Its Jai Bangla platform offers most of these services. The West Bengal Building State Capability for Inclusive Social Protection Project will support these interventions at the state level. The project is expected to further help digitize the state’s unified delivery system, the Jai Bangla platform, to help consolidate disparate social support programmes and hasten the delivery of social pensions.
The Ministry said the project will create a teleconsultation network for social care services, supported by case management workers. They will advise households on eldercare and links to health services. It will create a platform to improve government intervention to correct women’s low participation in the state’s workforce.
For the federal government, the Ministry of Finance’s Department of Economic Affairs Additional Secretary Rajat K Mishra and West Bengal’s Finance Secretary Sudip K Sinha and World Bank India Country Director Junaid Ahmad signed the agreement.
Food and in-kind transfers reach most poor households in West Bengal, but cash transfers remain weak, a recent survey reveals. Senior citizens, widows and disabled people do not have proper access to a social pension because of tedious processes and the absence of automated application and eligibility verification, the Ministry claimed.
West Bengal’s challenges include manual data entry, inconsistent beneficiary data across departments, and no data storage and exchange.
– global bihari bureau
