Highly placed state government officials of the Uttar Pradesh government revealed that a World Bank team will visit UP by mid-May. Besides camping in Lucknow, the team is also likely to tour different parts of the state to assess the pace of development and utilisation of earlier loans.

It is believed that the World Bank has decided to conduct an exhaustive survey of the macro economic situation of UP in particular since the state government has sought loans amounting to thousands of crores from the international bank. According to state government officials, the reason that may have propelled World Bank officials to assess the ground realities in UP could be because of the recent white paper brought out by the Kalyan Singh government which has painted a stark picture of theprevailing financial crisis in the state.

It may be mentioned that the UP government has chalked out ambitious schemes for the development of sectors like power, roads, irrigation, urban development environment, education, health and agriculture which are likely to cost a staggering Rs 24,150 crore. In view of the acute paucity of funds with the state government, assistance is being sought for several of these projects from the World Bank.

Foremost among these is a proposal of Rs 5000 to Rs 10,000 crore for a long-term power sector reform project, an additional Rs 2000 crore has been sought for the construction of flyovers, bridges and improvement of express ways while yet another 10-year project costing around Rs 5000 crore has been formulated for the development of irrigation facilities in the state. Similarly, a Rs 1,000 crore project has been drawn up for the development of cities like Lucknow and Ghaziabad while another Rs 150 crore five-year project for acceleration of the ecological balance in thestate has also been submitted for the World Bank's approval.

Significantly, the UP government's track-record with regard to several earlier World Bank aided projects notwithstanding, the Bank has recently agreed to sanction loans for a Rs 700 crore diversified agriculture support project for the state. The project, to be implemented in three phases in 72 districts of UP, will commence from September this year. The share of the World Bank loan will be around Rs 567 crore while the remaining Rs 133 crore will have to be shelled out by the state government, sources said.

Interestingly, however, the Bank has not been too enthusiastic about funding power projects in the state and has been dragging its feet over sanctioning a Rs 900 crore loan sought by the UP government some years back. This, officials attribute to the lack of political will displayed by successive state governments in implementing the reforms in the power sector including structural changes in the Uttar Pradesh State Electricity Board(UPSEB).

While the state finance department is burning the midnight lamp in preparing for the World Bank teams visit, yet another section is spending sleepless nights trying to work out how the state would cough up its share of funds in case the Bank agrees to fund any or all the projects for which assistance has been sought. Given the fact that the loans for the UP government have breached the Rs 50,000 crore mark, any new loans would only increase the burden on the state exchequer by way of servicing the loans, sources said. Also the annual expenditure on salaries and wages of state government employees alone stands at a hefty Rs 11,000 crore, the state government is being forced to dip into the corpus of the General Provident Fund for sustenance leaving virtually no money for any development work.