The desperation is evident. With two years remaining and some 78 per cent of the targeted 7,000 villages yet to be covered, the World Bank supported District Poverty Initiatives Project (DPIP) in Rajasthan hasn't been on target. Mr Tayaab Hussain, Minister for Rural Development in Rajasthan, seems a worried person and so is the project staff. Operational since 2000, the Rs 643 crore project is covering seven selected districts of the State to lift 3,50,000 families below the poverty line (BPL), as they are called, from abject poverty. The State Government is contributing 15 per cent of the total project cost against a World Bank's loan component of Rs 518. 25 crore, payable over an extended period of 20 years or so.