Following up the environmental and other concerns raised before the Supreme Court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT) by those opposed to the construction of capital city Amaravati at the chosen location in Guntur district, leaders of 46 Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) fired a fresh salvo against the proposed funding of 10 arterial roads and other amenities by the World Bank (WB) in the form of a letter a few days ago.
‘Revoke support’
In the communication addressed to the Executive Directors of the WB, the CSOs’ leaders, including Medha Patkar, demanded that the bank revoke its support to the Amaravati Sustainable Capital City Development Project under which it is to extend a credit of $ 500 million for creation of infrastructure or stand accountable along with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) for the serious consequences of this project whose design, they argued, is flawed based on its own environmental and social safeguards.
The letter assumes significance in the context of an assessment of the proposal by the WB at a high-level meeting reportedly scheduled for December 12 where public feedback received during village-level consultations will be discussed in addition to the facts presented by WB teams.
‘Atmosphere of intimidation’
The CSOs’ leaders said it was unfortunate that the WB remained silent when Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu instructed the Capital Region Development Authority to firmly deal with those working against the capital project and that the ‘atmosphere of intimidation’ was reflected in the WB inspection panel’s report.
They said the CSOs would not hesitate to direct their charges against the WB on lending to the ‘catastrophic project’ alleging that the Land Pooling Scheme was forced.
‘Unconstitutional’
Since Amaravati did not have the approval of District Planning Committee as mandated by Article 243 ZD of the Constitution, extending any form of loan and assistance would be tantamount to participating in an unconstitutional project, they noted.
The NGT appointed supervisory and monitoring committees to subject the project to further review from the perspective of assessing risks, including those posed by climate change.
Nine demands
The CSOs also contended that the AP CRDA Act was against the country’s Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act-2013.
They have put forth nine demands to the WB and said they would be looking forward to a sound judgement in the case.
