Reported by Mrinal Banik
Agartala: The World Bank has assessed the performance of the Tripura Rural Economic Growth and Service Delivery Project (TRESP) as “moderately satisfactory” and noted strategic progress across multiple sectors during a mid-term review of the project, officials said on Tuesday.
The assessment was made during the sixth Implementation Support Mission (ISM) and Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the World Bank-funded project, which began in Agartala with a series of review meetings involving state government officials and World Bank representatives.
The mission commenced with a kick-off meeting chaired by Tribal Welfare Department Secretary K Sashikumar at Pragya Bhavan on Sunday, where project officials presented progress made under various components of TRESP, including livelihoods, education, agriculture, fisheries, animal resources development, roads and infrastructure.
Later, a high-level review meeting chaired by Chief Secretary J K Sinha at the State Secretariat examined project performance, implementation challenges and measures required to achieve targets within the stipulated timeframe.
World Bank Task Team Leader Priti Kumar said the project had registered significant progress across several sectors over the last six months.
According to officials, the review highlighted strengthening of community institutions, working capital support to nearly 60 per cent of eligible groups, promotion of aggregation and collective marketing, and activation of producer groups for livelihood generation.
The World Bank team stressed the need for stronger monitoring systems, timely execution of activities and effective deployment of field-level human resources to sustain implementation momentum, officials said.
Addressing the meeting, Sinha reiterated the state government’s commitment to the project and assured support in addressing requirements related to funds, logistics, infrastructure and manpower.
He noted that factors such as the Model Code of Conduct and adverse weather conditions had affected implementation in some areas but expressed confidence that project activities would gather pace.
On Monday, the World Bank delegation held a separate review meeting with Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare Department Secretary Apurba Roy and officials of the State Institute of Public Administration and Rural Development (SIPARD).
The discussions focused on strengthening commodity-based value chains through commodity mapping, market assessment and cluster-based planning. The review also emphasised improving extension services through technical support agencies, capacity building of community resource persons and expanding the training-of-trainers model.
The World Bank team underscored the importance of climate-resilient agriculture practices, quality monitoring systems, field-level supervision and convergence with solar-powered and other sustainable agricultural initiatives.
A major part of the discussion centred on the Village Development Plan (VDP) initiative being implemented by SIPARD. Officials said the World Bank appreciated the participatory planning process adopted for preparing development plans in tribal villages.
The review suggested that VDPs should incorporate household-level information on landholdings, livelihood assets, education, health and access to basic services to facilitate evidence-based planning and convergence of government schemes.
TRESP, which began in 2024, is a six-year project aimed at improving rural livelihoods, service delivery and economic opportunities in tribal areas of Tripura.