§ Lord Kennetasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether at any stage, as participants in the activities of the World Bank, they have formed an opinion on the environmental and social impact of the Sardar Sarovar dam project in India, which the Bank is substantially funding, and if so what was that opinion, how was it reached, and to whom was it expressed.
§ Baroness Chalker of WallaseyWe have taken a keen interest in the implementation of the World Bank supported Sardar Sarovar project. At a meeting of the World Bank on 23rd October our Executive Director said that further payments on the project should be suspended if real progress on resettlement and rehabilitation and environmental issues had not been met by the time of the review in April 1993.
At the meeting our Executive Director expressed grave concern over mistakes made in the design and implementation of the project. He sought and obtained confirmation that India accepted a set of specific performance benchmarks to be achieved by next April and that the World Bank would provide substantial technical assistance to the State Governments to help achieve rapid progress on the key issues. As a measure of our commitment to helping resolve the problems, we have offered to provide technical co-operation funds of up to £1 million in an attempt to ensure that the benchmarks are met. Our offer, which has been accepted, was made because we wish to see the resettlement and environmental issues fully and effectively handled. World Bank loans for the project amount to $450 million out of an estimated project cost of $3 billion.