Is there any provision for supporting India through the global economic meltdown?
Yes, that is a part of the overall package. There are several areas where the Indian government has asked for our support. One of them is to enhance the corpus of the India Infrastructure Finance Corporation to help finance public-private partnership in infrastructure, support to SIDBI to provide credit to small and medium enterprises, and support to the power sector through the Power Grid. There are also proposals to support the National Housing Bank and the recapitalisation of state banks. However, we have not completed our due diligence on these last two and hence the modalities and the scope of the support are not clear yet. What is the amount that has been set aside to assist India? Of the total envelope of $14 billion set aside for India over the next three years, $3 billion is in immediate response to the government’s request for $5. 6 billion. As this request came just after our country strategy had been finalised, we were able to respond with an initial provision of $3 billion
