World Bank approved $800 for Amravati despite negative internal view, court, NGO objections: CFA

By A Representative

Despite over 170 representatives by civil society organisations, hailing from 17 countries, all of them written to the World Bank’s executive directors calling upon the top banker to defer its approval, even as seeking further detailed studies, the Bank’s board of directors has approved $800 million for the Amaravati Capital City project.
Ironically, the Bank’s own Inspection Panel in 2019 had called for investigation into the project, and the Andhra Pradesh High Court had called the Land Pooling Scheme (LPS) for its “prima facie illegal and non-compliant” of the National Green Tribunal orders. The Panel had sought strict adherence to the Bank’s policies, including ensuring meaningful, transparent consultations with all affected communities, before the project is approved.
Bringing this to light, the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability (CFA) said, the civil society groups had also asked the World Bank to resist political pressures from the Government of India and take a courageous stand in defence of the rights of people, the environment, and the Bank’s stated commitments to sustainable development and social equity.
In spite of this, “the Board of Directors going ahead with the approval of the project reeks of disregard for the judicial system of the country, undermining its own accountability mechanisms and disrespecting the rights and concerns of the people”, CFA regretted in an email alert to Counterview.
According to CFA, the approval should be seen in the light of the World Bank having a historically contentious legacy in India, “marked by projects such as the Narmada Dam, the Singrauli thermal power project, the Tata Mundra coal plant, the Mumbai Urban Transport Project, and the Himalayan dams, among others”.
Warning that this project “is poised to be yet another stain on the World Bank's legacy”, CFA reported, this project was first presented to the World Bank in 2017, when the Bank approved a loan of US $300 million. However, before the financing details were finalised, the political landscape in the state changed, and the project was shelved in 2019.
Five years later, the same political party that proposed the project returned to power and sought World Bank financing again, said CFA, pointing out, in 2017, local communities impacted by the project raised their concerns with the World Bank’s Inspection Panel (IPN), which submitted its Third Report and Recommendation in March 2019.
“The Panel’s findings highlighted significant issues with the project, particularly regarding the violation of the Bank’s Involuntary Resettlement Policy (OP/BP 4.12). These issues, including inadequate (and illusionary, as the Andhra Pradesh High Court has observed in its order of March 2022) compensation, lack of livelihood restoration, and the absence of necessary consultations, remain unresolved to this day”, CFA asserted.
The IPN’s 2019 Report made several critical recommendations, noted CFA, “including the need for a thorough investigation into the alleged harm caused to local communities, particularly landless labourers who lost their livelihoods years ago.”
”The Panel also raised concerns over the LPS, noting that it had never been implemented at this scale and could set a dangerous precedent for future development projects. The adequacy of compensation, particularly whether it meets the replacement value, was also questioned”, it added.

It continued, “The Andhra Pradesh High Court held the Land Pooling Scheme (LPS), under which the State government acquired lands from farmers, to be prima facie illegal. As a result of the flip-flop decisions of the State government in the choice of location of the capital city at Amaravati since the Bank considered the project in 2017, the farmers who gave up lands under the LPS have been subject to irreparable loss.”
According to CFA, “In the absence of a formal statutory notification issued by Government of India under the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014 on the location of the capital city as on date, the farmers continue to face severe uncertainties in the matter of valuation of their precious lands”, underlining, how in the past 10 years have demonstrated the serious gaps in LPS”, rocked as it was by protests by LPS farmers on the streets for more than 1,600 days with over 500 criminal cases having been filed, including on women LPS farmers.
“Despite this, the project is being pushed forward under an increasingly authoritarian political climate, both at the state and national levels”, CFA said.
The two crucial judicial orders pronounced by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) referred to by CFA had wanted the State government to put in place mechanisms for compliance with environmental norms in implementing the Amaravati project in a sustainable manner, even as requiring that the State government should conserve the floodplains of River Krishna. The NGT orders “are yet to be complied with by the State government”, it commented.
In the light of this, CFA demanded that, despite the approval, the Bank can “still hold on to its lending until detailed studies are conducted, completed with the High Court and National Green Tribunal judgments and adherence to the Bank’s own policies vis-a-vis adequate consultation with affected communities and adequately compensating the people for their loss.”

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

From colonial mercantilism to Hindutva: New book on the making of power in Gujarat

By Rajiv Shah Professor Ghanshyam Shah ’s latest book, “ Caste-Class Hegemony and State Power: A Study of Gujarat Politics ”, published by Routledge , is penned by one of Gujarat ’s most respected chroniclers, drawing on decades of fieldwork in the state. It seeks to dissect how caste and class factors overlap to perpetuate the hegemony of upper strata in an ostensibly democratic polity. The book probes the dominance of two main political parties in Gujarat—the Indian National Congress and the BJP—arguing that both have sustained capitalist growth while reinforcing Brahmanic hierarchies.

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu. He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat

UP tribal woman human rights defender Sokalo released on bail

By A Representative After almost five months in jail, Adivasi human rights defender and forest worker Sokalo Gond has been finally released on bail.Despite being granted bail on October 4, technical and procedural issues kept Sokalo behind bars until November 1. The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), which are backing Sokalo, called it a "major victory." Sokalo's release follows the earlier releases of Kismatiya and Sukhdev Gond in September. "All three forest workers and human rights defenders were illegally incarcerated under false charges, in what is the State's way of punishing those who are active in their fight for the proper implementation of the Forest Rights Act (2006)", said a CJP statement.

Would breaking idols, burning books annihilate caste? Recalling a 1972 Dalit protest

By Rajiv Shah A few days ago, I received an email alert from a veteran human rights leader who has fought many battles in Gujarat for the Dalit cause — both through ground-level campaigns and courtroom struggles. The alert, sent in Gujarati by Valjibhai Patel, who heads the Council for Social Justice, stated: “In 1935, Babasaheb Ambedkar burnt the Manusmriti . In 1972, we broke the idol of Krishna , whom we regarded as the creator of the varna (caste) system.”

May the Earth Be Auspicious: Vedic ecology and contemporary crisis in Ashok Vajpeyi’s poetry

By Ravi Ranjan* Ashok Vajpeyi, born in 1941, occupies a singular position in contemporary Hindi poetry as a poet whose work quietly but decisively reorients modern literary consciousness toward ethical, ecological, and civilizational questions. Across more than six decades of writing, Vajpeyi has forged a poetic idiom marked by restraint, philosophical attentiveness, and moral seriousness, resisting both rhetorical excess and ideological simplification.

Search This Blog