Newsletter : World Bank in India - January 2021

World Bank in India Vol 21 / No. 3

January 2021

A Quantum Leap in Building New Freight Corridors

Road safety

How Tamil Nadu is leading the way to lower road crash deaths

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New Projects

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New Publications

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A Quantum Leap in Building New Freight Corridors India’s Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor is a world-class, freight-only railway line that is part of India’s most ambitious railway project since independence.

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lance out of a train window as it whistles across the Gangetic plain and an unusual sight confronts you. Huge yellow gantries rise up amidst the tranquil countryside, and massive machines lumber alongside, placing new tracks at a speed and scale never seen in India before.

These colossal machines are laying the foundation for the Eastern Dedicated Freight Corridor (EDFC) a world-class, freight-

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only railway line that is part of India’s most ambitious railway project since independence.

On December 29, 2020, Prime Minister Modi flagged off the Khurja-Bhaupur stretch of the track, the first section of the 1,856 km long EDFC that will run between the industrial hub of Ludhiana in Punjab and Dankuni near Kolkata in West Bengal.

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The electrified railway line will allow freight trains to travel three times faster while pulling heavier loads. The quicker, cheaper, and more reliable movement of goods will contribute to reducing India’s inordinately high logistics costs and help bind the country into a single market.

The corridor will also drive the establishment of industrial zones at junction points along the way, breathing new energy into one of India's poorest, most densely populated and least industrialized regions.

At the same time, moving freight onto a different track will free up existing railway lines, improving the speed and reliability of passenger trains on high-demand routes.

The World Bank has supported the construction of the 1,200-km LudhianaMughalsarai stretch of the EDFC since 2011 through a series of three projects totaling $1.8 billion.

All around the world, moving freight by rail is far quicker, cheaper and greener than sending it by road. Not so much in India where rail freight is slow and unpredictable.

Now, new world-class freight corridors will ease pressure on existing tracks and help boost trade and growth along some of India’s busiest routes.

Building a world-class system The project has not only been a landmark for the Indian Railways, it has also ushered in a quantum leap in technology for the traditionally labor-intensive railways sector.

“With 7,000 km of world-class freight tracks to be built within a tight budget and schedule, we needed the latest equipment, modern construction techniques, and the best expertise from all over the world,” said Mr. Ravindra Kumar Jain, MD of the

This pioneering initiative will be a game changer for India’s transport sector, moving India onto a greener growth path. It has the potential to make India a front-runner in rail freight operations, boosting the competitive edge of its manufacturers and producers.

Martha Lawrence, Senior Transport, Specialist, World Bank

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Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL). “This, along with the necessary transfer of technology would enable us to move towards an Atmanirbhar Bharat,” he added, citing India’s policy of forging a competitive and self-reliant economy. DFCCIL is a corporate entity created by the Government of India to execute this mammoth task.

Not surprisingly, the initiative has seen many firsts. As the Indian Railways’ first turnkey project, DFCCIL brought in teams of international experts to help with design, execution and procurement.

Old methods were replaced with modern ones. Track laying was fully automated and towering yellow gantries placed each quarter km-long rail with precision. What’s more, the work was completed five times faster, and with a three times smaller workforce. Overhead wiring, signaling and telecommunications works were also mechanized, and drones were deployed to monitor construction.

For the first time, operations will no longer be controlled by station masters along the route. Instead, signaling along the entire length of the EDFC will be managed by a state-of-the-art Operations Control Center at Prayagraj, one of the world’s largest such centers.

Furthermore, in a major ‘Make in India’ enterprise, powerful new locomotives that can pull the 6,000 ton freight trains at 75-100 km/hour are now being manufactured in Madhepura, Bihar, in collaboration with the French company Alstom.

The initiative has also opened new vistas for Indian construction companies. Their exposure to new technology and investment in state-of-the-art machinery has equipped them to take on further projects and expand their operations overseas.

“Mechanized methods in both track laying and overhead wiring have increased productivity and significantly reduced safety risks that are typical of conventional

The project was the first major expansion of the Indian Railways, marking a bold new chapter for the railways sector. It creates a new model for the railways and brings in the flexibility to introduce innovations.

Atul Agarwal, Senior Transport Specialist, World Bank

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methods,” said Rajeev Jyoti, Chief Executive of Larsen & Toubro’s Railway Business.

“Moreover, the project has adopted

international contracting documentation and provides a fair balance of risk between the client and the contractor.”

IMPACT  The freight corridor will help India reduce its unduly high logistics costs from some 13-15 percent of GDP, helping it move towards the target of 8 percent, bringing them more in line with global standards.  In addition, each kilometer-long freight train on the EDFC will replace some 72 trucks on average. This will ease congestion on India’s overcrowded roads and highways, which carry an overwhelming 60 percent of the country’s freight, and make the roads safer.  Besides, the move from diesel-operated trucks to electrified rail, together with the shift from older railway lines to the energy-efficient corridor, will reduce India’s fossil fuel consumption and lower its carbon footprint.  The recently opened Khurja - Bhaupur section alone will decrease the country’s CO2 emissions by some 4.2 million tons between 2022 and 2052 and make a significant dent in air pollution.  The decongestion of roads along this stretch will also save India some Rs 4.9 billion in logistics costs, with additional benefits of Rs 2.4 billion accruing from reduced pollution.  Significantly, the dedicated freight corridors will bring about a paradigm shift in rail services, enabling multiple freight operators to use the tracks by 2022.  Going forward, India’s railway authorities plan to extend these corridors along the Golden Quadrilateral, and the diagonals between them, linking the country from east to west, and north to south. Feasibility studies of Kharagpur-Vijayawada, Vijayawada-Itarsi, BhusawalDankuni, and Rajkharswam-Andal sections (about 4,000 km) will be conducted in 2021.

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Development Dialogue COVID-19 Impact in South Asia

49 to 57

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million

percent

million more people pushed into extreme poverty

increase in food prices

In a grim pandemic, silver lining of regional cooperation #OneSouthAsia webinars highlight joint actions to address shared problems When COVID-19 brought South Asian countries to a near standstill, severely disrupting trade and travel, India introduced “faceless assessments” to evaluate declarations of goods online. Bangladesh was quick to remove import duties on 12 priority items, Nepal set up Quick Response Teams at customs to clear essential goods within two hours, while Bhutan implemented zero contact clearance. In the middle of a grim pandemic, these small steps to ease cross-border trade have been encouraging and offer new opportunities.

The World Bank’s Regional Integration, Cooperation, and Engagement (RICE) approach is a strategic framework to unlock such opportunities, and help South Asian nations cope with COVID-19 with a focus on resilience, economic connectivity, and human capital.

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6.7 % contraction in economic activity in 2020

391 million

students out of primary and secondary schools

The RICE program’s #OneSouthAsia webinar series is steering discussions on joint actions to address shared problems and strengthen regional infrastructure, trade links, and cooperation on climate change. The first two webinars “How can Regional Cooperation Support Covid-19 Recovery in South Asia”, and “Feeding South Asia in Times of Crisis: Building Resilient Agriculture Supply Chains” were held in September and November, 2020. They highlighted that despite challenges, COVID-19 offers opportunities that can help alter political tensions and trust deficits in the region.

The webinars identified some of the following areas for regional collaboration: 1. COVID-19 vaccine and health infrastructure cooperation: India’s role in vaccine production and pharmaceutical expertise can be mobilized to produce vaccine for the whole region. The panelists emphasized that India is home to world’s largest vaccine producer, the Serum Institute in Pune, and declaring vaccine as regional public good can make it available to South Asian nations without commercial and patent costs. India can also take a similar lead

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in regional production of fabric for personal protection, such as masks and gloves.

2. Maintaining food supply chains: Maintaining food supply chains in the pandemic has been essential to food security and controlling food inflation in the region.

For example, the land border between India and Bangladesh was open for production export and import even though peoples’ movement was restricted. The paperwork requirements were adapted to digital and non-contact clearances to keep the food supply chains active. Another avenue to strengthen food security is the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) food bank, which now holds about 500,000 tons of grain, and can further be expanded. During the pandemic, Bhutan for the first time took advantage of the food bank to source rice from India.

3. Promoting digital access and collaboration The panelists suggested investing in expanding digital access across regions, sharing infrastructure and digital skills, setting up e-learning or e-marketplace sites throughout South Asia, which can boost exchange and collaboration.

4. Improving connectivity and trade: The panelists suggested to accelerate investments in transboundary transport infrastructure (roads, rail and inland waterways) and to facilitate cross-border trade to reduce the time and cost to trade. A significant reduction of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers will also be needed to jump start economies and boost intraregional trade. Cross-border electricity trade also holds promise to increase energy availability, reduce costs, and diversify the energy mix.

5. Currency swaps and concessional credit lines: Currency swaps are another tool of regional cooperation to help countries when funding

in their local currency becomes difficult. For example, in early 2020, India’s Central Bank extended a $400 million currency swap facility to Sri Lanka to boost the island’s foreign exchange reserves and financial stability. The panelists suggested offering concessional lines of credit to countries facing liquidity and balance of payment problems, which will help instill confidence at the regional level.

6. Data and knowledge sharing: Panelists agreed that data sharing is fast becoming a critical tool for collaboration to respond to challenges like the current pandemic, climate change, air and marine pollution, and food insecurity. In Pakistan, the government is planning to set up food security dashboards with data on each district’s surplus, shortage, or near-shortage of food staples. Panelists suggested a similar region-wide tool that can add valuable transparency to agriculture and food markets. Other areas where South Asian nations stand to gain from increased data and knowledge sharing include disaster risk management and hydromet, air pollution management, and water resources management.

Cecile Fruman, Director, Regional Integration and Engagement in South Asia, emphasized that COVID-19 has brought opportunities in areas never thought of in the past, like vaccine development and distribution, e-health, digital applications, education, online businesses and trade. “Regional integration and cooperation will be essential to support the nations of South Asia to build back better, enhance their resilience to climate change and other shocks, and create pathways out of poverty through further trade and economic connectivity,” Fruman added.

Please use this link https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/ south-asia-regional-integration 7

#Road safety How Tamil Nadu is leading the way to lower road crash deaths JAMES MARKLAND | DIPAN BOSE| DOMINIC S. HAAZEN

“Every life lost on the road is one too many” resonates viscerally in Tamil Nadu, which until recently, was one of the worst-ranked states in India for road crashes and fatalities.

In 2014, more than 15,000 people were dying every year from road crashes in Tamil Nadu. But decision-makers have turned the situation around through strategic vision and leadership.

In 2019, road deaths in Tamil Nadu fell to 10,000, a reduction of over 25 percent.

What’s notable is that improving road safety did not come at the expense of economic development but rather supported it.

What important lessons can other Indian states learn from Tamil Nadu’s successful experience in improving road safety?

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Tamil Nadu focused on coordinated management of interventions, bringing all key stakeholders to the table.

Strong leadership and improved road safety management Tamil Nadu focused on coordinated management of multi-sectoral interventions, bringing all key stakeholders to the table, and establishing a Road Safety Executive Leadership Group - responsible for decision making across the state. A Road Safety Management Cell supported the leadership to implement actions, review monthly road safety initiatives, statistics and targets at the district level while crash trends were reviewed monthly by no less than the state’s Director-General of Police.

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Interdepartmental coordination and standard operating procedures included teams of Police, Highways and Transport visiting every fatal crash site and reporting on causative factors, remedial and punitive measures within three days. This provided the recipe for sustained and holistic management of the road safety problem in the state.

Tamil Nadu has brought down the post-crash response time of emergency medical teams to 14 minutes.

Focus on post-crash response Improving the trauma care system was an essential component of road safety management in Tamil Nadu. The state established Emergency Care Centers and Accident Relief Centers on high crashprone road stretches in national and state highways.

Response time was dramatically improved through a dedicated call-line as well as proactive allocation and dynamic positioning of ambulances. The state also introduced triage and acuity scoring systems at the pre-hospital level to ensure prioritization of patients. Effective traffic management of emergency vehicles at signalized junctions helped reduce travel time.

These efforts were supplemented through institutional, data management and capacity building efforts such as developing a Centre of Excellence in trauma care in Kanchipuram, implementing trauma registries in hospitals for systematic data analysis, and firstresponder training. These successes have also enabled Tamil Nadu to be well-positioned to quickly adjust and provide additional ambulance support to patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A ‘first of its kind’ crash database system Tamil Nadu is a leader in the use of datadriven, scientific approaches to address road safety challenges with its web enabled GISbased Road Accident Database Management System (RADMS) developed over a decade ago. This “first of its kind” system, which maps road accidents, identifies the most crashprone hot spots, and pinpoints corrective action, has now been adopted as the template for replication at a national level for all other states.

Use of RADMS with its linkage to medical facilities across the state has brought down the post-crash response time of emergency medical teams to 14 minutes, at par with the world’s best trauma services.

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Adapting infrastructure to a fast urbanizing state Tamil Nadu has a tradition of good road building with safety improvement measures built in. It also adapted its infrastructure to urbanizing conditions through pedestrian footpaths, fencing and crossing facilities, traffic calming, signage, and channelization.

Between 2014 and 2018, the state Highways Department spent almost $200 million on special road safety programs and on rectifying more than 200 crash hotspots; about 2% of the capital expenditure under its Core Road Infrastructure Development Program has been earmarked for road safety, and the state also effectively utilized the Central Road Fund earmarked to states for safety engineering works.

Improving road user compliance Stringent enforcement has also significantly improved road user compliance and transparency. Enforcement of helmet laws, working hours of tourist/maxi cab drivers, and wine shops along highways was tightened; district collectors were asked to rationalize the speed limits on highways and a control room activated to monitor highway police patrol; and traffic regulations strictly enforced with e-challans issued through smart integration with the national vehicle and license databases.

This yielded impressive results on behavior change - between 2018 and 2019, twowheeler fatalities in Tamil Nadu due to nonwearing of helmets declined by 28%. The state is now embarking on the next level of deterrence of risky user behaviors through automated speed enforcement systems and modernized equipment and tools.

The road ahead Tamil Nadu’s early successes show that data-driven evidence-based road safety interventions when applied well are likely to produce the desired results. Mobilizing large resources for road safety is also possible despite the lack of a lead agency and dedicated funding arrangements.

The World Bank worked closely with the state government to support these multi-sectoral road safety initiatives, through projects including the Tamil Nadu Road Sector Project and the Health System Reform Program.

Going forward, sustaining these achievements will require that Tamil Nadu’s efforts on road safety management, postcrash care, infrastructure safety, and digital enforcement are continued. Other states in India would do well to traverse a similar road towards lower road crash deaths.

India will need an additional

$109 billion over the coming decade to achieve the SDG target of reducing national road crash deaths by half

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Some recent Blogs COVID-19 has worsened the woes of South Asia's informal sector

By Maurizio Bussolo, Siddharth Sharma, Hans Timmer More than 80% of all South Asia's workers engage in informal activities; over 90% of the region's businesses are informal. A large informal sector, and conversely a small formal one, is a development concern. It limits the tax base as many informal firms remain below income tax thresholds. The lack of social protection in the informal sector keeps informal workers vulnerable and with few prospects for better jobs. They also lack legal protection and collateral needed to access credit, curtailing their productivity, business expansion, and overall economic

growth. The challenge for policymakers is to provide relief to the informal sector in the short run and design universal social protection systems in the longer run.

Read more at : https://blogs.worldbank.org/ endpovertyinsouthasia/covid-19-has-worsened-woes-southasias-informal-sector

Little by little, India restores its lost mangroves

By Peeyush Sekhsaria Mangroves play a vital ecological and protective role.

Found exclusively in the intertidal zones of rivers and estuaries, they help recycle nutrients, maintain the hydrological cycle, protect the coast from storm surges, and serve as nurseries for fish and other marine creatures of high ecological and economic value.

Read more at: https://blogs.worldbank.org/endpovertyinsouthasia/little-little-india-restores-its-lost-mangroves

Transforming India’s energy efficiency market by unlocking the potential of private ESCOs

By Ashok Sarkar, Satheesh Sundararajan In India's rapidly growing electricity demand requires the government to look at creative solutions to meet it.

Energy efficiency implemented through energy services companies (ESCOs) has great potential to address this challenge. However, much of the country’s energy efficiency investment potential—estimated at $150 billion—remains untapped.

Read more at : https://blogs.worldbank.org/ppps/transforming-indias-energy-efficiency-market-unlocking-potential-private-escos

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New Projects $400 Million Project to Protect India’s Poor and Vulnerable from the Impact of COVID-19 December 2020 The Government of India and the World Bank signed a $400 million project to support India’s efforts at providing social assistance to the poor and vulnerable households, severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the second operation in a programmatic series of two.

The first operation of $750 million was approved in May 2020. It enabled immediate cash transfers to about 320 million individual bank accounts identified through preexisting national social protection schemes under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) and additional food rations for about 800 million individuals.

The Second Accelerating India's COVID-19 Social Protection Response Program will build on the shifts that the first operation has achieved and address some of the gaps. It will: • •

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Move away from a scheme-based system to a more integrated one; Build an adaptive social protection system through use of the government’s disaster response funds which can quickly provide support to excluded groups and deliver needs across states and communities, not only for COVID-19 but also for any future natural disaster or crises;

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Create a portable social protection platform in India to ensure food, social insurance and cash-support for migrants across state boundaries.

Support the government’s targeted measures to identify and quickly trigger cash and social insurance benefits for the urban poor and unorganized sector workers currently outside program databases.

First operation of $750 million in May 2020 enabled: • cash transfers to around 320 million individual bank accounts • Food rations for about 800 million

The program was prepared in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Agence Française de Développement (AFD) and Kreditanstalt Fur Wiederaufbau (KfW).

The $400 million credit is from the International Development Association (IDA) – the World Bank’s concessionary lending arm.

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$100 Million for Nutrition-Supportive Agriculture in Tribal-Dominated Areas of Chhattisgarh December 2020 The World Bank’s Board has approved a $100 million project to develop sustainable production systems that allow tribal households in remote areas of Chhattisgarh to practice round-the-year production of diversified and nutritious food.

CHIRAAG – Chhattisgarh Inclusive Rural and Accelerated Agriculture Growth Project – will be implemented in the southern tribal-majority region of the state where a large population is undernourished and poor. The project will benefit over.

180,000 households from about 1,000 villages in eight districts of Chhattisgarh.

To make agriculture nutrition supportive, the project will implement a series of activities that are climate resilient and profitable.

Investments will be made in waterharvesting structures and irrigation facilities; integrated farming systems blending crops, fishery and livestock production; climate-smart production technologies and practices; developing value chains to ensure that surplus commodities reach profitable markets; and in making nutritious food available to tribal households.

The foundation for a more diverse and nutritive food and agriculture system will be built through village-level efforts to reduce post-harvest losses, improve access to profitable markets and mobilize smallholders into farmer producer organizations.

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated response has disrupted access to economic opportunities, especially in rural and tribal areas. The project will help stabilize and restore the local food supply and production, secure livelihoods and expand income and job opportunities for people returning to their villages in pandemicaffected project areas.

The Project will invest in : Water harvesting & irrigation Fishery & livestock production Climate smart agriculture technology Value chains for access to markets

The $100 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), has a maturity of 17.5 years, including a grace period of 5.5-years.

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$500 Million Project to Develop Green, Resilient and Safe Highways in India December 2020 The Government of India and the World Bank signed a $500 million project to build safe and green national highway corridors in the states of Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. The project will also enhance the capacity of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in mainstreaming safety and green technologies.

783 kms of green National Highway corridors in Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh & Andhra Pradesh.

The Green National Highways Corridors Project will support MoRTH construct 783 km of highways in various geographies by integrating safe and green technology designs such as local and marginal materials, industrial byproducts, and other bioengineering solutions. The project will help reduce GHG emissions in the construction and maintenance of highways.

The project will support the ministry with an in-depth analysis of gender-related issues in the transport sector along with help in creating jobs for women by training women-led micro enterprises and women collectives to implement green technologies in the highway corridors.

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The National Highways of India carry about 40 percent of road traffic. However, several sections of these highways have inadequate capacity, weak drainage structures and black spots prone to accidents. The project will strengthen and widen existing structures; construct new pavements, drainage facilities and bypasses; improve junctions; and introduce road safety features. It is imperative that the infrastructure investments are climate resilient. To this effect disaster risk assessment of about 5,000 km of the National Highway network will also be undertaken under the project along with support to ministry for mainstreaming climate resilience aspects in project design and implementation.

The $500 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), has a maturity of 18.5 years including a grace period of five years.

The Project will: • strengthen and widen existing structures • construct new pavements, drainage facilities and bypasses • improve junctions • introduce road safety features

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$105 Million Project to Improve Waterways in West Bengal January 2021 The World Bank has signed a $105 million project with the Government of India and the Government of West Bengal, to improve the inland water transport infrastructure in Kolkata, West Bengal.

First phase of the Project will: • Enhance capacity & improve safety • Rehabilitate existing jetties • Buy new ferries with enhanced design • Install electronic gates in 40 locations The West Bengal Inland Water Transport, Logistics and Spatial Development Project will facilitate passenger and freight movement across the Hooghly river. The project will cover the five most populous districts of southern West Bengal, including its urban agglomeration -- the Kolkata Metropolitan Area (KMA), where around 30 million people or one-third of West Bengal’s population live.

West Bengal’s ferries can provide an efficient, flexible mode of public transport for both passengers and freight, saving on operating

costs and travel time when compared with road journeys. Developing the river transport infrastructure will enable a large population of the state to utilize its waterways, have alternative, multi-modal options for transportation for both freight and passengers, connect the hinterland with Kolkata Metropolitan Area’s markets and job centers and emerge as a logistics hub.

In the second phase, it will support longterm investments for passenger movements, including in terminals and jetties; improve the design of the inland water transport vessels; ensure night navigation on the most hazardous and trafficked routes and crossing points; and encourage the private sector to invest in Ro-Ro vessels that will allow easier movement of trucks across the Hooghly river.

To better cope with increased precipitation and flooding, climate-smart engineering solutions will be applied, including modular floating designs for ferry access points at the passenger terminals. In addition, the project will facilitate disable-friendly amenities, ensure women’s safety and encourage women’s employment in the IWT Department as well as with the ferry operators.

The $105 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), has a maturity of 17 years, including a grace period of 7 years.

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$68 Million to Improve Quality of School Education in Nagaland December 2020 The World Bank has approved a $68 million project to enhance the governance of schools across Nagaland as well as to improve teaching practices and learning environments in select schools.

The Nagaland: Enhancing Classroom Teaching and Resources Project will improve classroom instruction; create opportunities for the professional development of teachers; and build technology systems to provide students and teachers with more access to blended and online learning as well as allow better monitoring of policies and programs. Such an integrated approach will complement conventional delivery models and help mitigate the challenges posed by COVID-19.

Strengthening Nagaland’s Education Management and Information System (EMIS) will enable wider access to education resources; support professional development and performance evaluation systems for teachers and education managers; facilitate school leadership and better management; and support examination reforms.

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As part of that strategy, approximately 15 out of Nagaland’s 44 higher secondary schools will be developed into school complexes that operationalize the envisioned learning environment during the project period.

About 150,000 students and 20,000 teachers in the government education system in Nagaland will benefit from the statewide reforms in schools.

The $68 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), has a final maturity of 14.5 years including a grace period of 5 (five) years.

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$250 Million to Make Existing Dams Safe and Resilient across India December 2020 The World Bank has approved a $250 million project to improve the safety and performance of existing dams across various states of India.

India is home to over 5000 large dams with a storage capacity of more than 300 billion cubic meters.

The Second Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project (DRIP-2) will strengthen dam safety by building dam safety guidelines; bring in global experience; and introduce newer technologies. A major innovation envisaged under the project, that is likely to transform dam safety management in the country, is the introduction of a risk-based approach to dam asset management that will help to effectively allocate financial resources towards dam safety needs.

Since project effectiveness in 2012, Government of India has been implementing the World Bank-supported DRIP-1 (US$279 million) and Additional Financing (US$62 million). This project has improved the safety and sustainable performance of 223 dams in six states of India and one central agency.

Other important measures that DRIP-2 will support include flood forecasting systems and integrated reservoir operations that will contribute to building climate resilience; the preparation and implementation of Emergency Action Plans to enable vulnerable downstream communities to prepare for and enhance resilience against the possible negative impacts and risks of climate change; and the piloting of supplemental revenue generation schemes such as floating solar panels.

First Dam Rehabilitation & Improvement Project • ($279 million + $62 million (addl finance) • Improved safety and sustainability of 223 dams in six states “This is the world’s largest dam management program. Its objective is to break the costly cycle of ‘build-neglect-rebuild’ which characterizes the operations and maintenance of infrastructure across sectors,” said Junaid Ahmad, World Bank Country Director in India. “The expected outcomes will be gamechanging: sustaining the livelihoods and food security of millions of Indians who depend on irrigated agriculture and enabling farmers to shift out of pumping groundwater, thereby, reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. This program can act as a lighthouse for other countries tackling the challenge of managing hydraulic infrastructure.”

The 2nd project will be implemented in approximately 120 dams across the states of Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Meghalaya, Odisha, Rajasthan, and Tamil Nadu,

The $250 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), has a maturity of 13 years, including a grace period of 6 years.

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$500 Million to Improve Quality of India’s Education System January 2021 The Government of India and the World Bank has signed a $500 million Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States Program (STARS) to improve the quality and governance of school education in six Indian states - Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Rajasthan.

Some 250 million students (between the age of 6 and 17) in 1.5 million schools, and over 10 million teachers will benefit from the program.

The STARS program builds on the long partnership between India and the World Bank (since 1994), for strengthening public school education and to support the country’s goal of providing ‘Education for All’. Prior to STARS, the Bank had provided a total assistance of more than $3 billion towards this goal.

STARS will support India’s renewed focus on addressing the ‘learning outcome’ challenge and help students better prepare for the jobs of the future – through a series of reform initiatives. These include:

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Delivery of education services at the state, district and sub district levels, providing customized local-level solutions towards school improvement.

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Addressing demands from stakeholders, especially parents, for greater accountability and inclusion by producing better data to assess the quality of learning.

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Giving special attention to students from vulnerable sections – Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), and minority communities.

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Delivering a curriculum that keeps pace with the rapidly evolving needs of the job market.

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Equipping teachers to manage this transformation by supporting individualized, needs-based training that will give them an opportunity to have a say in shaping training programs.

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Strengthening foundational learning for children in classes 1 to 3 and preparing them with the cognitive, socio-behavioral and language skills to meet future labor market needs.

STARS will also assist India's participation in PISA to obtain data on how India’s learning levels compare globally.

The $500 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), has a final maturity of 17.5 years including a grace period of five years.

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World Bank Publications New Additions A select listing of recent World Bank publications – reports, policy research working papers and project documents – that are available on the World Bank’s website. Links to some reports are also available here.

Global Economic Prospects, January 2021 World Bank Group January 2021 Although global economic output is recovering from the collapse triggered by COVID-19, it will remain below pre-pandemic trends for a prolonged period. The pandemic has exacerbated the risks associated with a decade-long wave of global debt accumulation. It is also likely to steepen the long-expected slowdown in potential growth over the next decade. In his Foreword, World Bank Group President David Malpass notes that “Making the right investments now is vital both to support the recovery when it is urgently needed and foster resilience. Our response to the pandemic crisis today will shape our common future for years to come. We should seize the opportunity to lay the foundations for a durable, equitable, and sustainable global economy.”

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Lights Out? COVID-19 Containment Policies and Economic Activity

Ex-Ante Evaluation of Sub-National Labor Market Impacts of Trade Reforms

Robert Carl Michael Beyer, Tarun Jain and Sonalika Sinha This paper estimates the impact of a differential relaxation of COVID-19 containment policies on aggregate economic activity in India.

Following a uniform national lockdown, the Government of India classified all districts into three zones with varying containment measures in May 2020. Using a difference-indifferences approach, the paper estimates the impact of these restrictions on nighttime light intensity, a standard high-frequency proxy for economic activity.

Maryla Maliszewska, Nichanametla Ramasubbaiah Israel and Rakesh Gupta A macro-micro simulation framework that links a computable general equilibrium model with the survey-based global income distribution dynamics model can be used to assess the economic and distributional effects of macroeconomic shocks and policies. The methodology is used to assess the economic and subnational labor market impacts of a series of stylized trade policy options for the Sri Lankan economy over a 10-year time period. The analysis focuses on the impact of unilateral para-tariff liberalization, free-trade agreements with China or India, and a fullreform scenario. The simulation results show

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that more ambitious trade reform can result in larger gains in gross domestic product, poverty reduction, and exports, particularly in sectors employing a higher proportion of women.

used to compare the compliance level of firms when they are inspected by agencies versus the times when they self-report.

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Estimating the Magnitude of Water Supply and Sanitation Subsidies

The Employment Effect of PlaceBased Policies: Evidence from India Yue Li and Sutirtha Sinha Roy Many governments in developing countries have pursued policies targeting specific geographic areas over the past several decades. However, only a few have rigorously evaluated the causal impact of these interventions. This paper examines the effectiveness of a prominent place-based policy in India: the centrally sponsored New Industrial Policy for the state of Uttarakhand.

Using georeferenced economic census data, the analysis applies a boundary discontinuity research design and zones in on the unique border between Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, two states that were officially one before the implementation of the New Industrial Policy WPS9468

The Drivers of Firms' Compliance to Environmental Regulations: The Case of India Sebastian Franco Bedoya and Muthukumara S. Mani Regulatory compliance is key in the fight against climate change and other environmental challenges. But regulatory agencies, especially in developing countries, are often hampered by their capacity to monitor and enforce standards and regulations against recalcitrant firms. There is now a big push toward self-reporting whereby the firms monitor and report on their compliance levels vis-a-vis the standards. This is seen as a way around the costs that agencies must incur if they were to scale up their inspections. In this paper, extensive firm-level data from India are

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WPS9448

Luis Alberto Andres, Gonzalo Espineira, George Joseph and et.al.

The water supply and sanitation sector remains heavily subsidized around the world. Yet, the accounting of water supply and sanitation subsidies globally has proved challenging due to utility-level data limitations and their often implicit nature. This paper develops a methodology to estimate water supply and sanitation subsidies that is adaptable to data scarce environments, while accounting for differences among service providers such as population served (to account for economies of scale), coverage of water and sanitation services individually, and their level of operational efficiency in terms of water losses and staffing.

WPS9447

People in Harm's Way: Flood Exposure and Poverty in 189 Countries Jun Erik Maruyama Rentschler and Melda Salhab Flooding is among the most prevalent natural hazards affecting people around the world.

This study provides a global estimate of the number of people who face the risk of intense fluvial, pluvial, or coastal flooding. The findings suggest that 1.47 billion people, or 19 percent of the world population, are directly exposed to substantial risks during 1-in-100 year flood events. The findings are based on high-resolution flood hazard and population maps that enable global coverage, as well as poverty estimates from the World Bank's Global Monitoring Database of harmonized household surveys.

World Bank in India

Other Publications Coping with Climate Change in the Sundarbans: Lessons from Multidisciplinary Studies Susmita Dasgupta, David Wheeler, Md. Istiak Sobhan, Sunando Bandyopadhyay, Ainun Nishat, and Tapas Paul, November 2020 This research lays the technical foundation for developing a better understanding of the changes the Sundarbans currently faces, including responses of the ecosystem and human communities. Based on field research, location-specific, resilience-smart adaptation measures are recommended for reducing climate change vulnerability. Beyond the Sundarbans, the studies’ methods and findings will be of interest to development practitioners, policy makers, and researchers focused on island nations and countries worldwide that feature high-density populations and economic activity in low-lying coastal regions vulnerable to sea-level rise.

Business Regulation in South Asia and the Belt and Road Initiative

By World Bank Group November 2020 This study provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of the business environment in six South Asian countries, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, to examine whether business regulatory requirements in these countries hinder them from fully benefiting from BRI project spillovers. The analysis is based on available secondary data sources and responses to a structured questionnaire sent to selected private sector participants in each of these countries, eliciting information on the law, regulation, and practice in a wide range of thematic areas influencing the

overall business and regulatory environment.

The identified thematic areas promote connectivity and regional integration and thus are particularly relevant from the BRI perspective. Improvements along different dimensions of these thematic areas will likely enable countries in the region to gain from BRIinduced opportunities.

Laying the Foundations: A Global Analysis of Regulatory Frameworks for the Safety of Dams and Downstream Communities Marcus J. Wishart, Satoru Ueda, John D. Pisaniello and et.al.

November 2020 The publication is a systematic review of dam regimes from a diverse set of 51 countries with varying economic, political, and cultural circumstances. These case studies inform a continuum of legal, institutional, technical, and financial options for sustainable dam safety assurance. The findings from the comparative analysis will inform decisionmakers about the merits of different options for dam safety and help them systematically develop the most effective approaches for the country context.

Integrating a Gender Equality Lens : Drawing Lessons from Three Good-Practice Development Policy Operations Marina Elefante Anja Robakowski November 2020 This note provides guidance on how to best identify and address gender gaps through one of the World Bank Group’s core financing instruments, Development Policy Financing (DPF).The note describes three examples of reforms carried out under DPF that were

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selected for their exemplary approach to addressing gender gaps by leveraging on governments’ motivation or potential wins.

Based on the examples, the note draws general lessons that can be applied to other projects, encouraging replication of good practice. The purpose of this note is thus to serve as a guide on how to address gender gaps through DPF.

Resilient Water Infrastructure Design Brief Global Water Security & Sanitation Partnership (GWSP) World Bank October 2020 The purpose of the Brief is to guide users on how resilience can be built into the engineering design of their project. With a focus on the three natural hazards most likely to affect water and sanitation infrastructure (droughts, floods, and high winds from storms), the document provides a six-step process to help users address weather and climate related challenges that are most likely to affect an infrastructure component at some point in its operational lifetime.

Asset Recovery Handbook : A Guide for Practitioners Second Edition Jean-Pierre Brun, Anastasia Sotiropoulou, Larissa Gray, Clive Scott and et.al.

December 2020 Developing countries lose billions each year through bribery, misappropriation of funds, and other corrupt practices. Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) Initiative has developed and updated this asset recovery handbook, a guide for practitioners to assist those grappling with the strategic, organizational, investigative, and legal challenges of recovering stolen assets.

A practitioner-led project, the Handbook provides common approaches to recovering stolen assets located in foreign jurisdictions, identifies the challenges that practitioners

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are likely to encounter, and introduces good practices. It includes examples of tools that can be used by practitioners, such as sample intelligence reports, applications for court orders, and mutual legal assistance requests.

International Debt Statistics 2021 World Bank November 2020 International Debt Statistics (IDS) is a longstanding annual publication of the World Bank featuring external debt statistics and analysis for the 120 low- and middle-income countries that report to the World Bank Debt Reporting System (DRS).

What Have We Learnt?: Overview of Findings from a Survey of Ministries of Education on National Responses to COVID-19

By UNESCO, UNICEF and World Bank November 2020

As part of the coordinated global education response to the COVID-19 pandemic, UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank have conducted a Survey on National Education Responses to COVID-19 School Closures. In this joint report, we analyze the results of the first two rounds of data collection administered by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). The survey instrument was designed to capture de jure policy responses and perceptions from government officials on their effectiveness, providing a systematic understanding of deployed policies, practices, and intentions to date.

World Bank in India

Policy Research Working Papers WPS9494

WPS9488

Economic Growth in European Union NUTS-3 Regions

Applying Machine Learning and Geolocation Techniques to Social Media Data (Twitter) to Develop a Resource for Urban Planning

Austin Francis Louis Kilroy, and Roberto Ganau WPS9493

Data Transparency and Long-Run Growth

By Asif Mohammed Islam and Daniel Lederman WPS9492

Texting Parents about Early Child Development : Behavioral Changes and Unintended Social Effects Oscar Barrera, Karen Macours, Patrick Premand and Renos Vakis WPS9491

Measuring Total Factor Productivity Using the Enterprise Surveys: A Methodological Note

Svetoslava Petkova Milusheva, Robert Andrew Marty, Guadalupe Bedoya Arguelles and et.al.

WPS9487

Corporate Market Power in Romania: Assessing Recent Trends, Drivers, and Implications for Competition Mariana Iootty De Paiva Dias, Georgiana Pop and Jorge O. Pena WPS9486

Subsidies, Information, and the Timing of Children’s Health Care in Mali Anja Sautmann, Samuel Brown and Dean Mark Kline WPS9485

David C. Francis, Nona Karalashvili, Hibret Belete Maemir and et.al.

Lights Out? COVID-19 Containment Policies and Economic Activity

WPS9490

Robert Carl Michael Beyer, Tarun Jain and Sonalika Sinha

Do Coronavirus Containment Measures Work? Worldwide Evidence

WPS9484

Fernando Heber Blanco, Drilona Emrullahu and Raimundo Soto

The Determinants of Regional Foreign Direct Investment and Its Spatial Dependence: Evidence from Tunisia

WPS9489

Bechir Naier Bouzid and Sofiene Toumi

Dynamics and Synchronization of Global Equilibrium Interest Rates

WPS9483

Robert Carl Michael Beyer and Lazar Milivojevic

Productivity Loss and Misallocation of Resources in Southeast Asia Francesca De Nicola, Ha Minh Nguyen and Norman V. Loayza

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WPS9482

WPS9475

Does Patient Demand Contribute to the Overuse of Prescription Drugs?

COVID-19 and Food Security in Ethiopia: Do Social Protection Programs Protect?

Carolina Pereira Lopez, Anja Sautmann and Simone Gabrielle Schaner WPS9481

Scarred but Wiser: World War 2's COVID Legacy Michael M. Lokshin, Vladimir Kolchin and Martin Ravallion WPS9480

Opening-up Trajectories and Economic Recovery: Lessons after the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic Asli Demirguc-Kunt, Michael M. Lokshin and Ivan Torre

Kibrom A. Abay, Guush Berhane, John Hoddinott and et.al.

WPS9474

The Coronavirus Pandemic and Food Security: Evidence from West Africa Guigonan Serge Adjognon, Jeffrey R. Bloem and Aly Sanoh WPS9473

Do Cash Transfers Foster Resilience?

Evidence from Rural Niger Patrick Premand and Quentin Stoeffler WPS9472

WPS9479

Does Maternal Depression Undermine Childhood Cognitive Development?

Evidence from the Young Lives Survey in Peru Maria Magdalena Bendini and Lelys Ileana Dinarte Diaz

Economic Crises and Returns to University Education in Middle-Income Countries: Stylized Facts and COVID-19 Projections Tazeen Fasih, Harry Anthony Patrinos and M. Najeeb Shafiq WPS9471

WPS9478

Ex-Ante Evaluation of Sub-National Labor Market Impacts of Trade Reforms

Children on the Move: Progressive Redistribution of Humanitarian Cash Transfers among Refugees

Maryla Maliszewska, Nichanametla Ramasubbaiah Israel and Rakesh Gupta

Berk Ozler, Cigdem Celik, Scott Cunningham and et.al.

WPS9477

WPS9470

The Employment Effect of Place-Based Policies: Evidence from India

The Interplay of Policy, Institutions, and Culture in the Time of Covid-19

Yue Li and Sutirtha Sinha Roy

Sheng Fang, L. Colin Xu and Yuanyuan Yi

WPS9476

WPS9469

Technology Within and Across Firms

Building Trust in the State with Information: Evidence from Urban Punjab

Xavier Cirera, Diego Adolfo Comin, Marcio Jose Vargas Da Cruz and Kyungmin Lee

Adnan Khan, Sanval Nasim, Mahvish Ifrah Shaukat and et.al.

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World Bank in India

WPS9468

WPS9462

The Drivers of Firms' Compliance to Environmental Regulations: The Case of India

Promoting Parental Involvement in Schools: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments

Sebastian Franco Bedoya and Muthukumara S. Mani

Felipe Barrera-Osorio, Paul J. Gertler, Nozomi Nakajima and et.al.

WPS9467

WPS9461

Poverty Alleviation and Interhousehold Transfers: Evidence from BRAC's Graduation Program in Bangladesh

Using Experimental Evidence to Inform Firm Support Programs in Developing Countries

Selim Gulesci

Arti Goswami Grover and Michele Imbruno

WPS9466

WPS9460

Socioeconomic Impacts of COVID-19 in Four African Countries

Credit Constraints and Fraud Victimization: Evidence from a Representative Chinese Household Survey

Anna Leigh Josephson, Talip Kilic and Jeffrey David Michler

Nan Gao, Yuanyuan Ma and L. Colin Xu WPS9465

In Light of What They Know: How do Local Leaders Make Targeting Decisions?

WPS9459

Ervin Dervisevic and Seth Aaron Levine Garz and et. Al.

Carlos Rodriguez Castelan, Emmanuel Jose Vazquez and Hernan Jorge Winkler

WPS9464

WPS9458

The Rural-Urban Divide and Intergenerational Educational Mobility in a Developing Country: Theory and Evidence from Indonesia

Measuring Human Capital in Europe and Central Asia

Md Nazmul Ahsan, M. Shahe Emran and Forhad J. Shilpi

WPS9457

WPS9463

From Farms to Factories and Firms: Structural Transformation and Labor Productivity Growth in Malaysia Amanina Binti Abdur Rahman and Achim Daniel Schmillen

Tracing the Local Impacts of Exports on Poverty and Inequality in Mexico

Asli Demirguc-Kunt and Ivan Torre

Interest Rate Repression: A New Database Pietro Calice, Federico Alfonso Diaz Kalan and Oliver Masetti WPS9456

Feeling Poor, Feeling Rich, or Feeling Middle-Class: An Empirical Investigation Maurizio Bussolo, Mathilde Sylvie Maria Lebrand and Ivan Torre

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WPS9455

Conflict and Poverty Hannes Felix Mueller and Chanon Techasunthornwat WPS9454

Big Sisters Pamela Jakiela, Owen Ozier, Lia C. Fernald and Heather Ashley Knauer WPS9452

WPS9448 Estimating the Magnitude of Water Supply and Sanitation Subsidies Luis Alberto Andres, Gonzalo Espineira, George Joseph and et.al.

WPS9447

People in Harm's Way: Flood Exposure and Poverty in 189 Countries Jun Erik Maruyama Rentschler and Melda Salhab

Complex Decisions between Care and Paid Work: A Qualitative Study on the Demand for Childcare Services in Mexico City

WPS9446

Miriam Muller and Martha Jaen

Joao Pedro Wagner De Azevedo

WPS9451

WPS9445

Measuring the Biases, Burdens, and Barriers Women Entrepreneurs Endure in Myanmar

Political Dividends of Digital Participatory Governance: Evidence from Moscow Pothole Management

Chiara Dall'Aglio, Fayavar Hayati and David James Lee

Nisan Gorgulu, Gulnaz Sharafutdinova and Jevgenijs Steinbuks

WPS9450

WPS9444

How to Improve Education Outcomes Most Efficiently? A Comparison of 150 Interventions Using the New LearningAdjusted Years of Schooling Metric

Women's Legal Rights and Gender Gaps in Property Ownership in Developing Countries

Noam Angrist, David Evans, Deon P. Filmer and et.al.

Learning Poverty: Measures and Simulations

Isis Gaddis, Rahul Suresh Lahoti and Hema Swaminathan WPS9443

WPS9449

The Role of Gender in Agent Banking: Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo Richard Chamboko, Robert J. Cull, Xavier Gine and et.al.

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Supporting Carbon Tax Implementation in Developing Countries through Results-Based Payments for Emissions Reductions Jon Strand

World Bank in India

WPS9442

WPS9437

Do Innovative Firms Pay Higher Wages?: Micro-Level Evidence from Brazil

The Impact of COVID-19 on Formal Firms: Micro Tax Data Simulations across Countries

Xavier Cirera and Antonio Soares Martins Neto

Pierre Jean Bachas, Anne Brockmeyer and Camille Marine Semelet

WPS9441

WPS9436

Why Do Firms Pay Bribes?: Evidence on the Demand and Supply Sides of Corruption in Developing Countries

Impact of Grain Trade Policies on Prices and Welfare: Evidence from Malawi

Bernard P. Gauthier, Jonathan Goyette and Wilfried Anicet Kouakou Kouame WPS9440

An Analysis of Clinical Knowledge, Absenteeism, and Availability of Resources for Maternal and Child Health: A Cross-Sectional Quality of Care Study in 10 African Countries

Habtamu Neda Fuje and Hemant Kumar Pullabhotla WPS9435

Vulnerability to Poverty Following Extreme Weather Events in Malawi Sandra Baquie and Habtamu Neda Fuje WPS9434

Laura Di Giorgio, David Evans, Magnus Lindelow and et.al.

Unmasking the Impact of COVID-19 on Businesses: Firm Level Evidence from Across the World

WPS9439

Marie Apedo Amah, Avdiu Christine, Cirera Besart, Vargas Da Cruz Xavier and et.al.

Africa in Manufacturing Global Value Chains: Cross-Country Patterns in the Dynamics of Linkages Kaleb Girma Abreha, Emmanuel Kwasi Koranteng Lartey, Taye Alemu Mengistae and et.al.

WPS9438

Risk Management in Border Inspection Russell Henry Hillberry, Bilgehan Karabay and Shawn Weiming Tan

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