19 july 2003

speed up reforms, world bank tells india
mumbai: the world bank says india's economic growth is slowing down and the government needs to provide fresh impetus to fiscal adjustment along with other reforms to achieve the targeted 8 per cent growth rate.

the bank says that at current trends, india's rate of progress is insufficient to meet its tenth plan targets as well as the international community's millennium development goals," according to the world bank's first india development policy review.
the bank says that development progress in india has been uneven as a result of which poverty is getting concentrated in the less developed states. for example, more than half of india's poor now live in four states: uttar pradesh, bihar, madhya pradesh and orissa.

the india development policy review says economic growth has been the key driver of poverty reduction in the country and its recent slowdown is a cause for concern.
from an annual average of 6.7 per cent between 1992-93 and 1996-97, growth fell to 5.5 per cent between 1997-98 and 2001-02 and then slipped to 4.4 per cent in 2002-03 partly because of the drought.

17 july 2003