US$ 130 million worth IDA credit signed between Govt. of India and World Bank for NERLP

The Government of India (GOI) signed an IDA credit of US$ 130 million with world bank to finance the GOI's efforts to empower rural communities in the growth-deficient North East (NE) region to improve their livelihood opportunities. 

The agreements for the North East Rural Livelihoods Project (NERLP) were signed by  Venu Rajamony, Joint Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, on behalf of the Government of India; Shri D. L. Wankhar, Project Director on behalf of the North East Rural Livelihoods Project; and Mr. Roberto Zagha, World Bank Country Director in India.

The NERLP will enhance the livelihoods of the rural poor, especially women, unemployed youth and the severely disadvantaged in eight districts of the four participating states- Aizawl and Lunglei in Mizoram; Peren and Tuensang in Nagaland; South, West and 15 Panchayat wards of East District in Sikkim; and West and North Districts in Tripura.

The Project seeks to develop an institutional platform for the communities, which will help them link up with the private sector, public sector, and civil society and to acquire the institutional, technical, and financial capacity needed for improving their livelihoods. Global development experience shows that absolute poverty can be overcome by equipping a member of the household (especially a youth) with employable skills. A separate activity for skills development and job placement has thus been included in the project to ensure that such opportunities are available to the rural poor. Some livelihood opportunities envisaged under the Project include natural resource management activities such as forest management, non-timber forest produce storage and processing, horticulture, preservation of riverine fishes, water harvesting and recharging of ground/surface water in the villages; community-based infrastructure activities like upgrading of small agricultural link roads, micro hydro-power schemes, wind-cum-solar mills, to name a few.

The Project comprises four key components (i) Social Empowerment; (ii) Economic Empowerment; (iii) Partnership Development and (iv) Project Management. The first component seeks to help rural communities to create sustainable institutions so that they can manage common activities around microfinance, livelihoods and natural resource management. The second component will provide funds to the community institutions to undertake various livelihood activities, as well as provide self-entrepreneurship opportunities to unemployed youth. To enable this, the Project with help develop partnerships with various formal financial intermediaries - such as microfinance institutions, commercial banks, development financial institutions such as National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), and specialized funding agencies such as North East Development Finance Institution (NEDFI) – and with the private sector and civil society to allow rural communities to access technical and marketing support. The project management component facilitates the implementation, coordination, monitoring and evaluation, learning and quality enhancement efforts of the project.

The credit from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s concessionary lending arm, has a final maturity of 25 years, including 5 year grace period.