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DAM-L Hundreds of Maheshwar Dam Affected People Demonstrate at IFCI, Delhi (fwd)
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Date: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 15:59:41 -0800
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From: Chittaroopa Palit <nobigdam@vsnl.com> (by way of Patrick McCully)
Subject: Hundreds of Maheshwar Dam Affected People Demonstrate at IFCI,
Delhi
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subject: LS: <fontfamily><param>Arial</param>Hundreds of Maheshwar
Affected People Demonstrate at IFCI, Delhi
</fontfamily>Dear friends,
Around 400 people demonstrated at the IFCI towers in Delhi today. IFCI
as you know is currently the lead bank in the financing of the
Maheshwar Project. Hope you can use this press note.
Warm regards,
Silvy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN
<center>Jail Road, Mandleshwar,
District Khargone , Madhya Pradesh.
Tel: 07283-33162, 07290-22464,
E-mail: nobigdam@vsnl.com
</center><underline><fontfamily><param>Arial</param>Press Note, Delhi
16.11.2000
<center><bold>Hundreds of Maheshwar Dam Affected People Demonstrate at
IFCI, Delhi
</bold></center></fontfamily></underline><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><center><bold>IFCI
Officials Agree to Visit Narmada Valley on
5<smaller><smaller>th</smaller></smaller>,
6<smaller><smaller>th</smaller></smaller>, and
7<smaller><smaller>th</smaller></smaller> January
</bold></center>Hundreds of people affected by the Maheshwar
Hydro-Electric Project held an angry demonstration at the Central
Office of the Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI) at Nehru
Place in Delhi today. Carrying banners proclaiming 'No IFCI endorsement
for Maheshwar dam', the demonstrators drew attention to the economic
and social destruction that would accompany any attempt to go through
with the Maheshwar Dam. The demonstrators sang songs and gave angry
slogans such as 'IFCI, <italic>hosh me aao, Narmada Ghati ko mat
dubao</italic>.'
The demonstration compelled Shri Ahuja (Executive Director, IFCI) and
other senior officials to come out and listen to people's issues for
nearly 3 hours. When the IFCI officials sought to leave the
demonstrators without hearing them out finally, people entered and
occupied the central hall of the IFCI. The Chairman of the IFCI who was
away at Bombay spoke to the people's representative telephonically and
confirmed that an IFCI team would visit the Narmada valley between
5-7<smaller><smaller>th</smaller></smaller> January,2001 before taking
any final decision to disburse funds to the Project. The villagers
expressed their outrage that the IFCI had prepared an appraisal report
endorsing the Maheshwar Project when the Project promoters do not even
have the statutorily required environmental clearance and
techno-economic clearance at the proposed investment of Rs.2254 crores
..
Addressing the dharna at IFCI, leader of the Maheshwar struggle, Shri
Alok Agarwal said that the IFCI is the lead agency in the public
financing component of the privatized Maheshwar Project. He said that
in the last three years, the strong struggle on the ground and the non
viability of the Maheshwar Project had forced out the US power utility
PacGen in 1998 and the German power utilities Bayernwerk AG and VEW
Energie in 1999, as well as led to the stoppage of the private German
HypoVereinsbank tied loan of Rs.570 crores to the Project. The project
promoters and the government were now looking to patchwork funds for
the dying Maheshwar Project with public money from financial
institutions, including the IFCI, IDBI, HUDCO, LIC, GIC, SBI, Punjab
Bank, and Dena Bank. Nearly 1700 crores of the 2254 crores Project is
now being sought to be funded with public financial institution money,
but the main owners and beneficiaries would be the US company Ogden and
the Indian promoters S.Kumars who would receive 16% guaranteed rate of
return of equity whether electricity is produced or not.
He pointed out that the private promoters would receive guaranteed
profits while public money would cover all risks and the people and the
environment would face the adverse impacts. It may be recalled that
when the Maheshwar Project was with the government, the Project cost
was Rs.465 crores. This was increased to Rs.2254 crores after
privatization and handing over of the Project to the S.Kumars.
Urmila Patidar of Village Pathrad also addressed the dharna .She said
that the Maheshwar Project will produce electricity that will be
prohibitively expensive. This expensive power which will range from
Rs.12-15 per kWh at point of consumption will lead to the stoppage of
thousands of agricultural pumps and pauperize the peasantry in the
state, bring darkness into the homes of thousands of common people who
cannot afford this power, drive power loom workers to the brink of
suicide, and cause small industries to close down. This is a Project
only of loot, she said ,challenging the Project promoters S.Kumars and
the Indian financial institutions to prove that this is a public
purpose Project or that the power can be bought by the common people.
Yet the lives and livelihoods of 40-,000 people ,hundreds of acres of
irrigated and fertile lands, sand quarries, fishing, draw-down
agriculture and a rich,composite culture will be unnecessarily
submerged.
The people of the Narmada valley expressed their complete outrage that
in the light of the fact that this Project will produce prohibitively
expensive electricity and that no cultivable lands for the
rehabilitation of the affected people exists, the IFCI as the lead
agency for financing of the Project has recommended to the other FI's
that the Project merits support. The people made it clear that in the
absence of any possibility of providing cultivable land and
livelihoods, the resettlement will only be a farce and is unacceptable
to them.
It may be noted that the IFCI is the financial institution with the
largest proportion of non-performing assets. It is a certainty that the
Maheshwar Project will add to the non-performing assets of the IFCI
mainly due to the fact that appraisal of its financial viability and
due diligence have been inadequately performed. Resettlement and
rehabilitation of around 40,000 project-affected people has not been
looked into at all and the IFCI has never even visited the valley till
date or sought to consult the project-affected people.
It is significant to note that the Maheshwar Project has been severely
criticized in several international as well as Government reports. As
recently as June 2000, a report commissioned by the Development
Ministry of the German government sharply indicted the Project. The
German government report notes the most flagrant and open violations of
the rehabilitation policy of the Madhya Pradesh government as well as
the statutory clearances of the Central Ministry of Environment and
Forests. It concludes that there is cultivable land necessary for the
rehabilitation of the affected people is not available in sufficient
quantity even by the admission of the Government of Madhya Pradesh
itself, and that "if the R&R policy were executed as provided, the
additional cost to the project would require an entirely new financing
package several times larger than currently provided for R&R." Thus, if
full and fair rehabilitation of the affected people is to be done, the
Project becomes socially and financially unviable.
This report confirms the earlier reports of the joint team of the
Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Ministry of Rural
Development and Water Resources, as well as the 1998 report of the Task
Force Committee constituted by the Madhya Pradesh state government.
The people affected by the Maheshwar Project and their supporters all
over the country challenge the financial institutions that are
considering investment in the Project, to establish that this Project
is in public interest, financially viable and that the rehabilitation
of the affected people and the land based restoration of the
livelihoods of the affected people is possible. Failing this they
intend to move charges against the decision-making officers for
squandering public investment and for taking significant decisions with
no input from or concern for their investors or the Project-affected
people. It is clear that the pressure of the Central and state
governments on the FI's to pump money into this dying Project is not
sound economics but represents the worst kind of subservience by public
institutions and public money to political decisions.
<paraindent><param>left,left,left,left,left,left,left,out</param>
Mangat Verma Chittaroopa Palit
</paraindent>
</fontfamily>
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