The World Bank Group on March 15, 2017 approved USD 210 million loan to strengthen gram panchayats in West Bengal.
The loan amount will be utilized for implementation of Phase 2 of the West BengalSupport to Institutional Strengthening of Gram Panchayat Program- ISGPP-2
The ISGPP- II will support 3,342 GPs in the state to utilize untied and discretionary funds provided under the inter-governmental fiscal transfer system.
The program seeks to strengthen local community participation in the financial management, planning and budgeting of projects introduced in rural areas.
During the first phase of the project, performance based block grants were given to 1,000 better performing GPs within 9 districts for investing in priority local infrastructure and service delivery projects.
Till now, 92,000 activities were carried out by GPs under the ISGPP.
Around 54 percent of the activities belonged to the transport sector, and 23 percent in areas concerned with water and sanitation.
The ISGPP-II will accelerate the pace of decentralization to gram panchayats across West Bengal through state wide unified performance based grant allocation system.
To access the PBG, GPs will be assessed on an annual basis through independent Annual Performance Assessment
The APA will be conducted for all 3342 GPs in special performance areas such as project execution, budgeting, planning, service delivery, accounting,financial reporting, auditing, transparency and accountability.
Certain other areas the program focuses on comprise building human resource capacity for enhanced transparency and accountability in local government functioning.
A robust internal audit system will be developed and implemented in gram panchayats.
West Bengal: Know More- Area: 88,752 km²Capital: Kolkata
- Population: 90.32 million (2012)
- Official animal: Fishing cat
