Why in news?

 A delegation from the World Bank held discussions with the Karnataka government regarding the ‘Resilient Karnataka Programme’, aimed at making the state climate-resilient and also strengthen it to mitigate disaster risks, along with international expertise.

Highlights:

• The World Bank is in the process of approving a loan to the tune of $517 million for augmenting urban and and rural drinking water supply projects in Karnataka.
• The major takeaway’s are:

1. Strong focus on putting in place a cross-cutting institutional arrangement on disaster risk management across the state
2. Focus on urban flood management, specifically in Bengaluru
3. Drought management across the state
4. Coastal risk management and the blue economy, including the plastic waste management in coastal zones(For the first time in the country, the bank is preparing an innovative plastic management project for coastal Karnataka)

Why this project is needed?

• The state had witnessed seven or eight severe droughts, and severe floods, landslides and sea erosion in the last five years, including unprecedented floods in Bengaluru city.
• There was a large-scale damage to public property as well as upsetting the daily life of the people.
• The World Bank is already working with Kerala on a project of similar fashion, known as ‘Resilient Kerala Programme’, which is at a fairly early stage, and is also in talks with Maharashtra to work on a similar programme there.

What are the state priority areas?

• Priority given for the management of Bengaluru floods , urban planning and sea erosion.

World Bank and Karnataka

• The seven Bank-assisted investment projects in Karnataka which are mostly focused on helping communities take control of the factors that control their lives.
• Three Bank-supported rural development projects seek to place village communities in charge of running their own water supply schemes, managing their local tanks and developing their local watersheds to improve longer-term livelihood opportunities.
• The Bank is also helping state strengthen the capacities of its panchayats and municipalities for more effective local governance.
• A state-level health systems development and reform project seeks to strengthen systems supporting basic health care delivery, engage local governments, and pilot innovative strategies in health insurance, and public health.
• The state has, in recent years, also been a recipient of the Bank’s development policy loans, with $ 150 million being disbursed in 2001 and $ 100 million in 2002. The Bank has also provided extensive technical and advisory support in Karnataka.

Single State Project in Karnataka

• Karnataka Watershed Development Project: The Project is being implemented in six of the state’s 10 rainfed districts: Gadag, Dharwad, Haveri, Chitradurga, Tumkur and Kolar.
• To improve the productive potential of selected watersheds and their associated natural resource base, and strengthen community and institutional arrangements for natural resource management
• Second Karnataka Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Project: The 11 rain-fed and mostly arid districts of northern Karnataka: Bidar, Gulbarga, Raichur, Bijapur, Bagalkot, Koppal, Gadag, Haveri, Belgaum, Dharwad and Uttara Kannada
• Increase rural communities’ access to improved and sustainable drinking water and sanitation services
• Institutionalize the decentralization of Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RWSS) service delivery to gram panchayats (village governments) and user groups.
• Karnataka Community-based Tank Management: Across rain-fed areas of 17 districts in Karnataka will be revitalized.
• Improve rural livelihoods and reduce poverty by developing and strengthening community-based approaches to improving and managing selected tank systems
• Karnataka Municipal Reforms Project: The municipal investment component comprises about 90 works in 32 participating ULBs, the institutional development component will cover all 169 ULBs of the state while the component focusing on the Greater Bangalore area will cover eight former neighboring ULBs (now merged into Bangalore)
• Improve the delivery of urban services by enhancing the quality of urban infrastructure, and strengthening the institutional and financial frameworks at the urban local body (ULB) and state levels.
• This includes improvement of the city roads in Bangalore and the sanitary conditions of eight ULBs around Bangalore city
• Karnataka Panchayat Strengthening Project: The Project focuses on 1,341 gram panchayats located in the 39 most backward talukas of Karnataka. These gram panchayats have a total population of about five million.
• Improve the effectiveness of service delivery by gram panchayats in Karnataka, particularly with respect to the management of public resources and the delivery of relevant services that the rural people prioritize
• Karnataka Health System Development and Reform Project: All districts will participate in the Project
• Aims to increase utilization of essential health services (curative, preventive and public health), particularly in underserved areas and among vulnerable groups, to accelerate achievement of the health-related sustainable Development Goals.

Why Karnataka?

• The development challenge facing Karnataka is thus to sustain high growth – its GSDP growth rate rose from 5.3 percent in the 1980s to 8.3 percent in the latter half of the 1990s – but couple it with an equally fast-track movement up the Human Development Index.
• It’s a large economy compared to other states in India. It has a fairly large population and large economy.
• Bengaluru being the IT tech centre, a very prolific city in terms of creativity and start-ups also. It’s a green, smart city that creates sense of optimism

• Karnataka is a strong beneficiary of World Bank’s national-level projects like dam rehabilitation project, national cyclone project, underground water project and national hydrology project,