The stick: meeting deadlines set for development projects.

The carrot: raising monetary support from Rs 100 crore to Rs 500 crore.

The Department for International Development (DFID), government of UK, is willing to pump in five times the present funding to Bengal in the coming years, provided the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government achieves the targets set by it.

“We are offering about Rs 100 crore to the government now. In three years, this may go up to Rs 500 crore if the government achieves the targets,” said Gareth Thomas, minister for Asia, DFID, at the launch of the £102-million Calcutta Urban Services for the Poor (CUSP) programme.

“We have strong ties with Bengal. We believe in partnerships, and we are driven by the needs of the people here, rather than the priorities in the UK,” Thomas added on Thursday.

Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee unveiled the programme, which covers municipalities in the Calcutta Metropolitan Area, excluding the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, for which the DFID has a separate, ongoing funding programme.

CUSP, which is to be completed by 2011, covers 40 municipalities. It will focus on:

• Rehabilitating and building assets for water supply, sanitation, drainage and small access roads in slums;

• lRehabilitating and filling gaps in the town network for basic water supply and sanitation services;

• Partial meeting of costs of water supply and sanitation projects serving two or more municipalities;

• Staffing and running costs for programme management and supervision, support to a process of economic planning.

“CUSP is part of a wider process of empowerment, as well as development of Calcutta. People will open doors to clean water, education and jobs,” said Thomas. Hours earlier, he had pledged the DFID’s support during meetings with industry minister Nirupam Sen and health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra.

Thomas later referred to Bengal’s proposal for budgetary support, indicating that the development agency was open to the idea. The proposal figured in his discussion with chief minister Bhattacharjee and other key ministers. “We are already offering budgetary support to Andhra Pradesh (£ 65 million) and Orissa (£ 30 million).”

Thomas added that the agency would not mind if some of the funds were used to pay off salaries in an emergency. “We are aware of the government’s financial crisis and there are lots of checks and balances to see how the money is spent.”

“We are also getting DFID funds to restructure sick public sector units, of which 16 have been identified. Great Eastern Hotel will be in this package,” said industry minister Sen.