Ajay Banga, president of the World Bank
| Photo Credit:
KRISZTIAN BOCSI

India and the World Bank group on Friday announced a new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) to help accelerate India’s next phase of growth and support its vision of Viksit Bharat.

This was announced when Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman met the World Bank group President Ajay Banga here. Acknowledging CPF aligned with the vision of Viksit Bharat, Sitharaman said: “Leveraging public funds with private capital, creating more jobs across rural and urban India and enriching projects with the Bank Group’s global knowledge will be key to achieving sustainable impact at both speed and scale.” She also stated that stated that India looks forward to the roll out of the CPF over the next five years and the sustainable impact it would lead to.

Calling India is one of the key engines of global growth today, Banga said: “Our strategic partnership aims to help India grow even faster on its path toward Viksit Bharat by 204. Creating more jobs is at the core of our work. This partnership brings together financing, reforms and private sector investment to turn growth into opportunity for millions of Indians.”

In a statement, the multilateral agency said that its global jobs strategy rests on three pillars- investing in critical infrastructure—both physical and human, strengthening a business-friendly environment through predictable laws, rules and regulations and deploying risk-management tools to help private investment scale. This approach focuses on five sectors that generate locally relevant jobs at scale: infrastructure and energy, agribusiness, health care, tourism and value-added manufacturing.

 “The new India–World Bank Group strategic partnership applies this global jobs strategy in India and supports it with $8–10 billion in annual financing over the next five years, using the Bank Group’s full range of instruments and expertise, to create jobs and mobilise private sector capital at scale,” it said.

Further, the partnership prioritises private sector-led job creation by upgrading skills, reducing barriers for small and medium enterprises, and expanding opportunities—particularly for youth and women. It focuses on four strategic outcomes. These include boosting rural prosperity and resilience, supporting urban transformation and livable cities, investing in people and strengthening energy security, core infrastructure and resilience.

The statement also mentioned that implementation of the new partnership framework will begin immediately, including through ongoing projects. One such project is supporting Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation through Upgraded ITIs. Under this an $830 million loan is provided to work with the private sector to upgrade India’s network of Industrial Training Institutes and help more than one million young people—especially young women—gain job-ready skills. Another one is the Maharashtra Project on Resilient Agriculture (Phase II. This $490 million project aims to enhance crop productivity and strengthen resilience by adopting digital technology in precision farming practices. 

Published on January 30, 2026

The turnover of farmer producer organisations (FPOs) has increased considerably from B2B business compared with B2C, after the government started the weekly webinar last year, wherein farmer representatives get to connect with corporates to establish a marketing linkage. So far, ₹1,100 crore has been transacted by FPOs under B2B arrangement, in which maximum ₹662 crore has been earned by them in delivering their produce over futures trading platform NCDEX.

On the other hand, the online transactions over the government’s GeM portal and ONDC platform were close to ₹5 crore. There is a negligible presence of FPOs on other e-commerce platforms, Amazon and Flipkart.

There are as many as 1,131 FPOs out of 10,000 created under the Centre’s equity participation scheme, which have more than Rs 1 crore turnover, each. Encouraged by the response of FPOs in expanding their business, the government has decided to increase these ‘crorepati’ FPOs to at least 5,000 during next fiscal, sources said.

Export potential

Biprojyoti Bhowmik, MD of New Agriverse FPO in West Bengal’s Coochbehar district, said currently the share of B2B in its total turnover is 70 per cent whereas 30 per cent comes from direct retailing through online platforms as well as from orders received through its own website.

“We expect our turnover to cross ₹5 crore this year, from ₹3 crore in 2024-25,” Bhowmik said, adding New Agriverse achieved ₹1 crore turnover in 2023-24, though started operation in 2022.

Having 2,600 farmer shareholders, the FPO primarily deals with mushroom, honey and millets by a host of value-added products. Bhowmik said that there is potential to increase export for which the government needs to support FPOs with necessary certification.

Prohibitive commissions

Sources said that there are nearly 6,000 FPOs registered over ONDC platform, where they have so far sold goods worth ₹1.25 crore in the past 10 months. On the other hand, only 37 FPOs on Flipkart and 6 FPOs on Amazon have been registered.

“The commission on big platforms are prohibitive for us as we cannot part 30-40 per cent when we do not have a branding, nor we can differently write the MRP only for these platforms,” said a Kashmir-based FPO’s representative. On ONDC platform, he uses India Post for delivering the products within and outside the state, he said.

After the weekly webinar started, the government has collated the business transacted by these FPOs and has found that they have been able to sell worth ₹205 crore to NCCF and ₹111 crore to Nafed, though these are mostly for the official procurement of wheat and paddy.

Among private companies, Mother Dairy has purchased products worth₹1.62 crore, Farmart ₹80 crore, Olam India ₹32 crore and Kisaan Say ₹7.5 crore, sources said.

Published on January 30, 2026

State-run Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL) has signed a crude oil supply agreement with Trafigura to supply Iraqi Basrah and Oman crude oil to the oil marketing company (OMC) on term basis.

Under the agreement, which was signed at the India Energy Week 2026 in Goa, the delivery for the cargoes will commence in April this year, Trafigura said.

This marks the first agreement of its kind for BPCL for imports of Basrah crude, representing a strategic milestone in the company’s procurement approach and strengthening India’s energy security framework.

Sachin Gupta, CEO of Trafigura India, said: “We are delighted to be supplying BPCL in this new agreement. Trafigura’s expertise, global reach and extensive supply chain capabilities allow us to source the crude oil BPCL needs for its refining requirements and growing consumer base in India. The agreement supports Trafigura’s growing role in supplying natural resources to India to support ongoing economic growth and increasing energy demand.”

Manoj Heda, Executive Director International Trade at BPCL, said: “This competitively priced term contract strengthens our crude oil procurement strategy and enhances India’s energy security. By leveraging market opportunities, we ensure a reliable and cost-effective supply of crude oil for our refining system, which is crucial to meeting the nation’s growing energy demands.”

Trafigura is a leading commodities group, owned by its employees and founded over 30 years ago. It deploys infrastructure, market expertise and our worldwide logistics network to move oil and petroleum products, metals and minerals, gas and power from where they are produced to where they are needed.

The Group comprises industrial assets and operating businesses, including multi-metals producer Nyrstar, fuel storage and distribution company Puma Energy, the Impala Terminals joint venture and Green energy, supplier and distributor of transportation fuels and biofuels. It employs around 14,500 people, of which over 1,400 are shareholders, and operate in over 150 countries.

Published on January 30, 2026