World Bank chief Zoellick meets Chidambaram

Visiting World Bank President Robert Zoellick met Finance Minister P. Chidambaram here today.

New Delhi, Nov 2 : Visiting World Bank President Robert Zoellick met Finance Minister P. Chidambaram here today.

Zoellick, who is on a three-day visit to India, is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh later in the day.

Zoellick's visit, his first to India, since heading the World Bank, is aimed at taking stock of the World Bank-aided programmes in India.

On Thursday, Zoellick visited a resettlement site of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) launched in 2002 in Mumbai with 542 million dollars assistance from the World Bank.

The project will work on providing new rail lines, bigger bridges to ease the city's traffic congestion, besides providing better housing for millions of slum dwellers living in makeshift huts along railway lines and roads.

Maharashtra is the second largest World Bank programme beneficiary among the Indian states with a current net commitment amounting to 1.2 billion dollars.

Since 1997, the bank's India strategy has focused on states attempting reforms, including Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.

According to World Bank estimates, nearly 313 million of India's 1.07 billion people live in abject poverty, despite economic growth of around eight percent a year.

India has pledged to boost spending on health, education and rural infrastructure to help the poor, and has been actively working with the World Bank to improve the rural health sector.

ANI