Book Description

The Government of India (GOI) is committed to strengthening Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) with a concerted effort to integrate and secure a central role for the village to district-level governments in World Bank-financed operations. The World Bank is actively seeking ways of achieving a greater degree of internal coherence between Bank-financed operations and consistency with the GOI approach to decentralization. With these objectives as backdrop, the report financing of panchayati raj institutions in World Bank-financed operations provides advice to World Bank task teams and clients for designing appropriate fiduciary mechanisms for PRI financing, ones that are consistent with the GOI constitutional framework and comply with World Bank operational policies and procedures. The report uses findings from a mapping exercise of ongoing Bank-financed operations in Panchayati Raj Institutions, analyzing the public financial management and accountability (PFMA) and procurement arrangements to determine what has or has not worked well and whether any can be replicated or mainstreamed. The report also covers the efficiency issues of panchayati raj institutions dealing with multiple financing sources with a resulting heavyload of reporting requirements; the extent to which existing PRI systems are being utilized or could have been utilized, and the views of PRI staff.