The World Bank in a report on Jharkhand said that after being carved out of Bihar as a new state in November 2000, Jharkhand was plagued by adverse initial conditions like very low average income, extremely high incidence of poverty and little social development.
Despite all these odds, there were some early signs of turnaround in Jharkhand in several respects.
The World Bank report was released by Jharkhand deputy chief minister, Stephen Marandi.
He promised that the state government would carefully examine the recommendations made in the report for implementation.
Speaking on the occasion, Fayez Omar, senior manager of the World Bank, India, said, "Jharkhand has an immense potential to tap its mineral and forest wealth in a people and environment friendly manner and embark upon an accelerated and inclusive growth strategy that ushers in a new development decade for Jharkhand".
He said the World Bank would be happy to partner the state in this endeavour.
Omar said that the World Bank had taken up 80 projects involving investment to the tune of $16 billion in India.
The Bank supported several large programmes in the eastern region, including one in Orissa.
The Orissa scheme was a very large one and the state government there had extended its full support.
The Bank report has recommended policy options for reform particularly of policies related to improving the investment climate to promote broad based growth, improving access to quality infrastructure, addressing issues in the mining sector, improving governance and service delivery, fiscal and public expenditure management and strengthening human development strategies.