**In India, there are districts in poor states that perform better than districts in rich states.** The data show this contrast by highlighting bad districts in rich states and good districts in poor states. There are 10 districts ranked among the top 25 percent of districts on access to infrastructure services that are located in poor states (first quartile of GDP per capita). Similarly, there are 12 districts among the bottom 25 percent of the districts in terms of access that are in rich states (fourth quartile).

# **4. Investment Needs in South Asia**

**Consistent estimates of investment requirements across SAR are a pre-requisite for developing a sound menu of policy and financial options to close the infrastructure gap.** Most governments in SAR have some estimates of the investments required to reach certain targets such as 24/7 electricity supply and the MDGs in water and sanitation. However, those estimates are not consistent across the region. For that reason we have developed different methodologies for different sectors to have consistent estimates of physical investment needs and their costs across the region. These models also allow us to calculate and compare the costs of different set of targets. Each model was applied to one country, which gives five sector-country combinations: (i) power for Nepal; (ii) transport for Sri Lanka; (iii) water and sanitation for India; (iv) solid waste management for Sri Lanka; and (v) irrigation for Afghanistan.<sup>11</sup> Having consistent estimates of investment requirements across the region gives us the much needed foundations to design a menu of policy and financial options to effectively and efficiently close the infrastructure gap in SAR.<sup>12</sup> These country-sector estimations were extrapolated to the rest of the region. Tables 3 and 4 present the estimations based on the technical models as well as the extrapolations for the other sectors where the models were not run.

**Table 3: SAR’s Total Investment Tab Could Reach Around $2 Trillion** _(Investment Requirements 2011-2020 (total, in Billions of dollars 2010)_

||Ind|ia|Bangl|adesh|Paki|stan|Ne|pal|Sri L|anka|SAR|(5)|SAR|(8)|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Low**|**High**|**Low**|**High**|**Low**|**High**|**Low**|**High**|**Low**|**High**|**Low**|**High**|**Low**|**High**|
|**Transport**|340.0|595.0|36.0|45.0|17.2|21.5|3.7|5.5|10.8|18.0|408|685|411|691|
|**Power**|375.0|468.8|11.0|16.5|64.0|96.0|5.3|7.0|4.8|9.0|460|597|464|603|
|**WSS**|95.0|162.0|12.0|18.0|9.3|14.0|1.7|2.6|0.6|1.8|119|198|120|200|
|**Solid Waste**|32.5|65.0|2.1|4.2|3.3|6.7|0.4|0.5|0.2|1.3|39|78|39|78|
|**Telecomm**|150.0|225.0|5.0|5.0|12.4|12.4|0.4|0.6|2.0|2.5|170|246|171|248|
|**Irrigation**|140.0|210.0|7.7|11.6|9.7|14.6|1.6|2.3|2.5|3.1|161|242|163|244|
|**Total**|**1,133**|**1,726**|**74**|**100**|**116**|**165**|**13**|**18**|**21**|**36**|**1,356**|**2,045**|**1,369**|**2,064**|

_Source:_ Authors’ calculations. _Note:_ Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS)

> 11 No other study estimating investment requirements in SAR or in other regions of the world (e.g., LAC and SSA) have developed a methodology to estimate investment requirements in the irrigation sector, as it was done for this study. 12 Additional information on these models can be found in the Infrastructure Needs Regional Study webpage: <u>http://go.worldbank.org/URIGW1E4W0.</u>

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