Skip to main content

Advocacy groups storm into World Bank consultations on environment, say its purpose is to help corporates

A protest rally in Kutch against ultra mega power plant
By Our Representative
Senior activists of several advocacy groups stormed into the civil society consultation, being held to “review” and “update” the World Bank's environmental and social safeguard policies organized by the World Bank at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi.
Terming these consultations as “eyewash”, these activists didn't allow the consultations to proceed, because they felt that the World Bank continues to hide behind the central and state governments in India or other government agencies in different countries and shirk responsibility for environmental and social damage.

Among the projects which were particularly mentioned for receiving World Bank aid despite such consultations was the Tatas’ Ultra Mega Power Plant at Mundra. Madhuresh Kumar of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), speaking on the occasion, said that if the Bank was seriously concerned about the impact of its investments, then the best test would have been “the sensitivity demonstrated in the investments made by its various lending operations.” The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the Bank’s private sector lending arm, is “complicit in massive human rights and environmental violations that form the basis of the super-mega $4 billion Tata-Mundra 4,000 MW power project in the ecologically sensitive Kutch region of Gujarat.”
In fact, the Bank, has “further endorsed such environmental crimes by offering a $1 billion loan to the building of the Fifth Power System Development Project, which essentially is a transmission line for Tata-Mundra and three other large coastal power projects. Participating in such manner, the Bank conveniently escapes any blame for the disaster, and yet benefits from financing such ‘development projects’”, he said.
Voluntary agencies which came together to protest against the Bank’s ways, apart from NAPM, were the Matu Jan Sangathan, the Domestic Workers Union, the Delhi Mahila Shahri Kaamgar Sangathan, the Delhi Solidarity Group, SRUTI, Delhi Forum, Programme for Social Action (PSA) and others.
Vimal Bhai of Matu Jan Sangathan said, “The way these consultations are organized are no different from what has been going on for decades. Many such reviews have been conducted, thousands of groups and individuals have participated with the intent of seeing genuine reform of the institution, and possibly its democratization, only to be utterly disappointed.”
He termed the current exercise nothing but a “charade to mask the true intentions of its major ‘shareholders’ – France, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, who are grappling with “serious economic downturns and are conveniently using the Bank to force open global investment opportunities with scant regard to environmental and social impacts.” Meanwhile, he added, “the Bank refuses to own up to its responsibility for social and environmental damages it did in Narmada Valley, Singapur, East Parej Mines, Allain Duhangan, Rampur, Luhri and Vishungad Pipalkoti.”
He wondered, “On several occasions these have been brought to the notice of the Bank but without success. Work for the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation, for instance, continues. If such is the case then why hold these stakeholders consultations?”
Umesh Babu of the Delhi Forum said, “The Bank’s policy on piloting the use of borrower systems for environmental and social safeguards has in the past decade been a mantra to pave the way for promoting investment at any cost. Over a decade ago the World Bank funded the Indian Ministry of Environment and Forests’ Environmental Management Capacity Building Project. The result was a massive dilution of India’s environmental and social safeguard norms. What’s worse, the processes that resulted lent voice to those within administration and industry who were crying hoarse that the carefully evolved rigour of ‘forest’ and ‘environmental’ clearance standards in India was thwarting economic growth.”
PSA’s Lakshmi Premkumar said, “It took people's organizations across the globe 30 plus years to pressure the World Bank Group to formulate, reformulate and have in place mechanisms that would safeguard social-environmental-cultural-traditional interests of communities and people affected by the Group's financing of so called 'Development projects' across the World and in India.”
However, she added, “it took the Bank, in particular the IFC, only one stroke of destructive imagination to bring in the new model of 'financial intermediary lending' that wiped out all mandatory requirements posed by environmental and social safeguard principles on lending, as they are not bound by such standards. At a time when the financial institutions (FI) model of lending in India by IFC and the World Bank at large are expected to cross the halfway mark of their collective investments, it does not make any sense at all for the World Bank to be holding such reviews of their environmental and social safeguards; they simply do not matter at all to the actual practice of the Bank and its agencies.”
Activists urged members of civil society, who had come for the consultation, to leave the meeting, if they really felt the pain of the people of this country. “The Bank has pushed for policies which have undermined the sovereignty of India and its people, privatized services, opened up market for loot and plunder of natural resources by the private corporations and very fundamentally changed the policies of this country in favour of capitalists forces”, they alleged.
Shouting slogans of “World Bank Quit India!”, “World Bank Down Down!” activists refused to budge from the venue until World Bank Country Director Onno Ruhl, left the hall at 2 pm followed by Stephen F Lintner, Senior Advisor, Sanjay Srivastava, regional safeguards advisor and other Bank officials along with few civil society organisation members and Bank consultants who stayed till last.
A statement by NAPM later said, “These sham consultations will not be tolerated unless Bank owned up damages, compensated communities and stopped funding the environmentally and socially destructive projects in name of 'development'. People's movements have been struggling across the country against its own governments demanding justice and challenging their nefarious capitalist designs but that doesn't mean World Bank can hide behind them. They are part of the larger design of the global financial systems and we will continue to challenge it.”
“The current ‘consultations’ are therefore a sham and must be denounced by anyone deeply concerned about the nature of democracy and are keen to ensure that all peoples of the world benefit from human activity that is based on deep appreciation and adherence to the principle of prior and informed consent and the principle of intergenerational equity”, it added.

Comments

TRENDING

Reducing emission? India among top nations whose coal as energy source going up

By NS Venkataraman*  The State of the Global Climate report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that the year 2023 was the warmest year on record, with the global temperature of 1.4 degree celsius above pre-industrial 1850-1900 base line.

Lockdown 'total failure' of science more than of politics: Open letter on 4th anniversary

Counterview Desk  In an open letter to fellow academicians, scientists and medical practitioners in India, marking the fourth anniversary of India's lockdown (25 March 2024), the Managing Committee* of the Universal Health Organisation (UHO) has insisted on the need to "repair two years of immense damage to science".

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Magnetic, stunning, Protima Bedi 'exposed' malice of sexual repression in society

By Harsh Thakor*  Protima Bedi was born to a baniya businessman and a Bengali mother as Protima Gupta in Delhi in 1949. Her father was a small-time trader, who was thrown out of his family for marrying a dark Bengali women. The theme of her early life was to rebel against traditional bondage. It was extraordinary how Protima underwent a metamorphosis from a conventional convent-educated girl into a freak. On October 12th was her 75th birthday; earlier this year, on August 18th it was her 25th death anniversary.

Savarkar 'criminally betrayed' Netaji and his INA by siding with the British rulers

By Shamsul Islam* RSS-BJP rulers of India have been trying to show off as great fans of Netaji. But Indians must know what role ideological parents of today's RSS/BJP played against Netaji and Indian National Army (INA). The Hindu Mahasabha and RSS which always had prominent lawyers on their rolls made no attempt to defend the INA accused at Red Fort trials.

'Wrong direction': Paris NGO regrets MNC ArcelorMittal still using coal-based steel

By Rajiv Shah  A new report by Paris-based non-governmental research and campaigning organization, Reclaim Finance, has blamed the MNC ArcelorMittal – formed in 2006 following the takeover and merger of the western European steel maker Arcelor (Spain, France, and Luxembourg) by Indian-owned Mittal Steel – for using use “climate destructive” metallurgical coal for its projects in India.

'Flawed' argument: Gandhi had minimal role, naval mutinies alone led to Independence

Counterview Desk Reacting to a Counterview  story , "Rewiring history? Bose, not Gandhi, was real Father of Nation: British PM Attlee 'cited'" (January 26, 2016), an avid reader has forwarded  reaction  in the form of a  link , which carries the article "Did Atlee say Gandhi had minimal role in Independence? #FactCheck", published in the site satyagrahis.in. The satyagraha.in article seeks to debunk the view, reported in the Counterview story, taken by retired army officer GD Bakshi in his book, “Bose: An Indian Samurai”, which claims that Gandhiji had a minimal role to play in India's freedom struggle, and that it was Netaji who played the crucial role. We reproduce the satyagraha.in article here. Text: Nowadays it is said by many MK Gandhi critics that Clement Atlee made a statement in which he said Gandhi has ‘minimal’ role in India's independence and gave credit to naval mutinies and with this statement, they concluded the whole freedom struggle.

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Attack on foreign students: Gujarat varsity's reputation, ranking at stake, say academics

Counterview Desk  Expressing anguish over the attack on international students in Gujarat University hostels, a letter claimed to have been signed by 122 current and former academics has asked the Gujarat Vice Chancellor, Dr Neerja Gupta, to provide emotional support to the attacked students and to ensure their physical safety.  

As double engine takes backseat in Odisha, BJP is pitted against 'firmly rooted' BJD

By Sudhansu R Das  BJP has got 25 years to build its party base in Odisha. After 25 years, it felt helpless and insecure to fight elections on its own strength. The party was almost crazy to have an alliance with the ruling BJD in Odisha.  Looking for alliance at the time of election shows that the party has not groomed its grassroots level workers into potential leaders.  The state BJP leaders woke up and convinced the Central leaders that they are capable of going solo; the alliance was stillborn. The question is can BJP defeat BJD which is firmly rooted in Odisha after launching piles of populist programs in the state.