June 04, 2006	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 7, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, June 3: World Bank would provide $50 million for capacity-building of tehsil municipal administrations (TMAs) in the Punjab to help them deliver municipal services more effectively, officials said on Saturday.

This financing would be provided under the Punjab Municipal Services Improvement Project.

The objective of the project is to improve viability and effectiveness of urban services provided by tehsil municipal authorities, and make these improvements sustainable and replicable in other municipalities.

These grants will finance activities in two areas: strengthening the capacities of the TMAs for improved urban management, governance and service provision; and financing infrastructure investments.

Since TMAs are not legally able to borrow money, project funds will be passed on to TMAs as grants. The loan is payable in 20 years including a grace period of eight years.

The population is growing rapidly and demand for improved municipal services is increasing. Current deficiencies in basic infrastructure inhibit economic growth and severely constrain the potential of the area to play a more significant role in the country’s economic growth.

Although devolution of authority has been implemented practically the situation on ground has not changed much with everyone sitting and waiting for the ultimate change to materialise.

This situation, officials believe, could be rectified only through improving the capacity of the municipal organisations to deliver the roles laid out under the Local Government Ordinance.

Development agencies have identified inadequate and improper assets inventories, lack of intra and inter-agency coordination, lack of working as well as business, autocratic and bureaucratic attitudes of the TMA officials, limited consumer coverage as some of the deficiencies that required to be addressed in totality. TMA, it has been observed, is catering for a limited scope of services and some of them are being duplicated by other agencies.

Meanwhile, under another $100 million project — Punjab Education Development Policy Credit — education sector reforms in the province would be supported.

The project is designed to enhance access, improve quality of education, and improve gender parity.