India - Uttaranchal Watershed Development Project

Page 1 PROJECT INFORMATION DOCUMENT (PID) APPRAISAL STAGE Report No.: AB217 Project Name Uttaranchal Decentralized Watershed Development Project Region SOUTH ASIA Sector General agriculture, fishing and forestry sector (40%);Crops (30%);Animal production (30%) Project ID P078550 Borrower(s) GOVERNMENT OF INDIA Implementing Agency Watershed Management Directorate Government of Uttaranchal Indira Nagar First Colony Dehradun India wmd@vsnl.com Environment Category [ ] A [X] B [ ] C [ ] FI [ ] TBD (to be determined) Safeguard Classification [ ] S 1 [X] S 2 [ ] S 3 [ ] S F [ ] TBD (to be determined) Date PID Prepared February 11, 2004 Date of Appraisal Authorization February 13, 2004 Date of Board Approval June 24, 2004 1. Country and Sector Background The proposed project would build upon the successful experiences, and scale-up the coverage of the current IDA/IBRD financed Integrated Watershed Development Hills II project (IWDP) which will close on March, 31 2005. The IWDP project covers five States with USD 45 million earmarked for Uttaranchal. Numerous impact studies have shown that the IWDP project has had considerable success in: (i) increasing productivity of agriculture while sustaining the natural resource base; (ii) increasing incomes of beneficiaries by an average of 38 percent; and, (iii) addressing poverty and ensuring that a substantial proportion of the poorest also received assets such as biogas plants, livestock mangers, etc. The proposed project would expand the geographical coverage of these successful experiences so as to cover 40 percent of the 116 sub-watersheds in the Uttaranchal Hills benefiting the populations of 9,200 villages/hamlets. The Government of Uttaranchal