World Bank CEO to commute in Mumbai local train on Tuesday

Mumbai, Feb 27 (IANS) World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva, who is reaching Mumbai, will commute in a local train to inspect the city's lifeline, the suburban train network, on Tuesday morning, an official statement said.

She will visit a school serving slum-dwellers of Dharavi and children with special needs, as part of the centre's World-Bank-supported initiative, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

Georgieva, who will be accompanied by World Bank South Asia Vice-President Annette Dixon and Country Director Junaid Ahmad, is coming on her first official visit to India.

In Mumbai, she will take the opportunity to see how the operations of the World Bank-supported suburban railway system, which ferries eight million commuters daily, is serving the fast-growing and urbanising India.

Her school visit would be examine how Mumbai's administrators are striving to ensure that basic services are delivered to all residents of the city, one-third of whom live in slums.

Georgieva's other major engagements in Mumbai include a meeting with Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. She will also meet other top policy makers in New Delhi.

"India is our biggest middle-income client. It economic growth influences global growth. Its achievements in health and education contribute to the world achieving the Sustainable Development Goals," she remarked on her visit.

At a time when the country's economic growth is one of the bright spots in the global economy, she expressed her keenness to learn more about India as a "laboratory for the world" to learn what works in development and fine new ways to collaborate.

As of January 2017, the WB's total IBRD and IDA net commitments stood at $27 billion (IBRD $16 billion and IDA $11 billion) across 95 projects in India.

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