Indicted by self
In a severe indictment of the World Bank's (WB) record of resettlement of people affected by its projects in India, the bank's own Operations Evaluation Division (OED) has recommended that funding of projects involving forcible relocation of people should be stopped. OED says a February 1980 policy makes the bank -- not the borrower -- responsible for implementing resettlement guidelines, which it says have not been implemented.
The OED report does not spare India either and says India's "overall record is poor to the extent of being unacceptable". It has called for a complete ban on financing resettlement projects in the country "unless there is some demonstrable government commitment to conform to World Bank guidelines and policies."
The report indicts the resettlement in the Gujarat medium irrigation project, the Ramagundam thermal power project, the second Singrauli thermal power project, the Farakka thermal power project, the Madhya Pradesh medium and major irrigation projects and the Subarnarekha irrigation project.
Nevertheless, OED says resettlement efforts are satisfactory in the Second Maharashtra Irrigation Project -- where income levels of those resettled increased with the grant of compensatory land -- and in the Karnataka Tanks Irrigation project. It also declared the Second Gujarat Irrigation project to be a partial success.