Drought-hit Maharashtra seeks World Bank’s help
mumbai — With the situation in drought-hit regions becoming grimmer by day, the Maharashtra government is desperately seeking help even from external agencies such as the World Bank.
The state, which has received about Rs40 billion from the centre over the past year to combat the drought, plans to seek a loan of Rs50 billion from the World Bank for drought-mitigation measures.
According to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the government has submitted a proposal to the external affairs ministry, asking it to approach the World Bank for help from its special fund set up to tackle drought around the globe.
Accessing World Bank funds is a long-drawn process and the state government is unlikely to get the money immediately. The funds would be used to undertake long-term projects to ensure that the backward regions of Marathwada and Vidarbha would become drought-free.
Regions like Marathwada are located in the rain shadow region and most years it receives very little rainfall. The Maharashtra government has over the decades poured billions of rupees in irrigation projects, many of which are riddled with corruption.
Most of the irrigation projects taken up by the government get delayed and the money sunk into it goes waste. According to the irrigation department, more than 500 irrigation projects have seen cost overruns amounting to nearly Rs445 billion.
The total cost of these projects was estimated at Rs1 trillion, but the government needs to inject an additional Rs1.25 trillion to complete the pending projects. Eighty-five of the projects were started 30 years ago, 60 of them about 20 years ago and nearly 80 projects about a decade ago.
Top leaders of the previous UPA regime — including Ajit Pawar, the nephew of Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar — have been accused of siphoning funds from the pending irrigation projects.
Experts say that if the projects had been completed on time, millions of people in the backward regions of the state would not have suffered because of two consecutive years of deficit rains.