India

Bihar is the third most populous state in India with over 100 million inhabitants. The state’s economy is dominated by agriculture: it constitutes 19.2 percent of state’s... Show More + Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employs nearly 75 percent of the labor force. 92.8 percent of the farmers in Bihar are small and marginal (small holders), which is much higher than the all India average of 83.5 percent2. In addition, only 29 percent of households own any land and the average landholding size is approximately one acres3. Furthermore, Bihar’s agriculture productivity is one of the lowest in India. For instance, the average productivity of paddy and wheat, the two major crops of the state, is much lower than the national average. The productivity of smallholders is further lower than the state average. Agriculture productivity in Bihar also affects food security as 88 percent of Bihar’s poor depend on farming for subsistence. Currently, programs that have not customized and adopted technologies for smallholders, have met with limited success. Other programs that are administered in a top-down manner have had a very slow adoption rate and limited long-term impact. These interventions have neither addressed the root of the problem nor the intergenerational nature of landlessness and poverty. Show Less -

While developing countries have made considerable progress in equalizing women's economic opportunities, inheritance legislation often remains strongly gender-biased.... Show More + We use inheritance patterns over three generations of individuals to assess the impact of changes made to the Hindu Succession Act that grant daughters equal coparcenary birth rights in joint family property. We show that although the amendment significantly increased daughters' likelihood to inherit land, substantial bias persists. Our results also indicate a robust increase in educational attainment of daughters, suggesting an alternative channel of wealth transfer. Show Less -

India experienced sustained economic growth for more than two decades following the economic liberalization in 1991. While economic growth reduced poverty significantly,... Show More + it was associated with an increase in inequality. Does this increase in inequality reflect deep-seated inequality of opportunity or efficient incentive structure in a market oriented economy? This paper provides evidence on economic mobility in post-reform India by focusing on the educational attainment of children. It uses two related measures of immobility: sibling and intergenerational correlations. The paper analyzes the trends in and patterns of educational mobility from 1992/93 to 2006, with a special emphasis on the roles played by gender and geography. The evidence shows that family background plays a strong role; the estimated sibling correlation in India in 2006 is higher than the available estimates for Latin American countries. There is a persistent gender gap in rural and less-developed areas. The only group that experienced substantial improvements is women in urban and developed areas, with the lower caste women benefiting the most. Almost 70 percent of the variance in children's education can be accounted for by parental education and geographic location. The authors provide possible explanations for the apparently puzzling improvements for urban women in a country with strong son preference. Show Less -

This paper describes and analyzes a series of complementary policy initiatives in India to adapt and commercialize existing global biotechnologies to meet local needs... Show More + in healthcare, agriculture, industry and the environment in a more affordable manner. This evolving approach has been implemented through six complementary elements, namely (1) translational research; (2) technology access through global consortia; (3) commercialization supported by public-private partnerships, broadly interpreted; (4) skills development; (5) regulation; and (6) institutional governance, including special purpose vehicles, for effective project management. The paper focuses on two public-private partnership initiatives, the Small Business Innovation Research Initiative and the Biotechnology Industry Partnership Program, which together have allocated more than US$70 million in public funding to almost 150 projects, contributing to a total public-private investment of more than $170 million over the past five years. The authors' key recommendation, to ensure effective resource use and better policy impact, is for these innovation-support initiatives to adopt more continuous monitoring with quicker feedback from learning to implementation, and more rigorous impact evaluation including approaches that allow the results of firms benefiting from support to be compared with an appropriate group of firms not benefiting from support. Show Less -

This study estimates that a package of comprehensive sanitation and hygiene interventions can result in averting 45 percent of adverse health impacts, and avoid all... Show More + the adverse impacts of inadequate sanitation related to water, welfare, and tourism losses. As a result of comprehensive interventions, this study estimates a potential gain of about Rs. 1.48 trillion (US$32.6 billion, which was the equivalent of 3.9 percent of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP in 2006). This signifies a potential gain of Rs. 1,321 (US$29) per capita. Estimates of the potential sanitation markets were made assuming expansion in access to improved toilets and wastewater treatment as a result of increased investments by the Government (in infrastructure creation and operations and maintenance) and households (investing in improved sanitation facilities). The national cumulative sanitation market has the potential of Rs. 6.87 trillion (US$152 billion) over the 2007-2020 period, with Rs. 4.4 trillion (US$97 billion or 64 percent) in infrastructure and Rs. 2.5 trillion (US$54 billion or 36 percent) in operations and maintenance services. The annual sanitation market is estimated to grow from Rs. 300 billion (US$6.6 billion) in 2007, to Rs. 683 billion (US$15.1 billion) in 2020. Show Less -

Meghmani Organics Limited (MOL) is a chemical group located in the state of Gujarat in India. Its main products are specialty chemicals, including pigments, pesticides,... Show More + and other intermediates. Prior to International Finance Corporation's (IFC's) investment, MOL had four manufacturing facilities in Gujarat, India, with about 2,000 employees. In 2008, IFC invested in MOL to build Meghmani FineChem Limited (MFL), a green field chlor-alkali plant, in Dahej, a port city in Gujarat. This smart lesson provides a snapshot of the changes that took place in MFL following IFC's recommendation for the company to employ women. Show Less -

A 'livestock revolution' has taken place in India over the last couple of decades. Demand for major livestock commodities (milk, eggs, meat) increased rapidly, leading... Show More + to unprecedented growth in the livestock sector. Today the livestock sector constitutes one of the major engines of agricultural growth in the country and continues to play a central role in rural poverty reduction. With growth and opportunity however come challenges and risks. These need to be tackled to keep the momentum of progress and guide new investments and policy reforms. Some observers argue that existing production systems, support services delivery systems, and marketing systems (particularly for dairy), are ill-equipped to meet the increasing market pressures. Others are concerned that some states and population groups are missing out on the livestock revolution, perhaps as they missed out on some of the benefits of the green revolution before. With intensified production and proximity to large urban centers, dimensions of public health, food safety, and quality become more important, particularly with the increased risk of disease transmission from animals to humans. These questions raise the issue as to the respective roles of national and state governments, the private sector, and civil society groups faced with this changing environment. Show Less -

This report summarizes the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environmental Management Plan (EMP) for the project, including project background, applicable legal... Show More + and policy framework and environmental monitoring standards, significant potential adverse impacts on the physical, biological, and socio-economic attributes of environment along with mitigation measures in the project area, analysis of alternatives, public consultation programs and environmental management plan. This executive summary prepared for the Second Karnataka State Highways Improvement Project, World Bank funded Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) and annuity packages serves as a concise environmental report. The annuity concessions are structured such that the concessionaire receives a pre-determined amount of money as part-payment during the construction period and annuity payments every year during the operation and maintenance period in return for the obligation to develop and maintain the highway for the duration of the concession period (10 years). The concessionaire is provided with the designs and drawings. However, the concessionaire is allowed to improve upon the design on the basis of given standards and specifications, with minimum required standards for certain components such as horizontal and vertical alignment, pavement to be met. The concessionaire shall construct the project within the project site provided by the Government of Karnataka (GOK). No additional land acquisition will be required during the implementation. The project site is based on the Development Policy Review (DPR) designs, complying with all the latest environmental guidelines with respect to environmental protection and conservation. The scope of work of the concessionaire also includes preparation of required environmental monitoring and management plans to be implemented for the proposed road construction works. Show Less -

Although Assam has an abundance of rainfall in the monsoon season and the land is fertile, farmers are unable to maximize the income from their fields because they lack... Show More + access to water during the long dry winter months. With Assam being a northeastern state, few qualified manufacturers were willing to bid. Moreover, to ensure that the pumps were of good quality, only manufacturers who had the requisite turnover and capacity were allowed to bid, reducing the number of bidders even further. The cost of the pump sets is not only lower; farmers also receive better after-sales service because the pumps are delivered by local dealers. Based upon the success of this project, the state's department of agriculture has mainstreamed the process of community procurement into their regular operations. The project team plans to upgrade the system to allow for two-way interaction between officials and farmers. Once in place, this system will be used to answer farmers' queries, inform farmers of the daily price of key farm products in certain markets, and collect data from some select farmers on agricultural production, etc. The system will also be used to collect data from district officials on the project's physical and financial progress. Show Less -

The Government of India has publicly committed to a doubling or trebling of government health spending by 2012 and launched a major program, the National Rural Health... Show More + Mission (NRHM), to help spend the additional funds and achieve better health outcomes. This paper reviews recent data on trends in government spending and various scenarios of central and state funding to assess the feasibility of achieving these financing goals. The goal of 2 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for government health spending is unlikely to be achieved, although there is clear evidence of program growth. Much larger state-level spending is needed to accelerate overall government spending in India's federal system. In addition, there is evidence of constraints in the ability to spend significantly increased budgets in a timely way and possible state substitution of increased central funding for existing state budgets. Significantly increasing government health spending in India requires more than simply raising budgets at the central level. NRHM does show some positive effects, but the rapid gains envisaged will require greater efforts to address the shortcomings of government systems and creative approaches to India complex federal financing system. Show Less -