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World Bank not to resume
Narmada dam funding

''Narmada is not on our agenda. We have nothing to do with it now,'' Robert Maurer, lead urban sector specialist, World Bank, told reporters Tuesday evening after a day-long workshop to unveil the bank's urban development, water supply and sanitation strategy for India.

The apex court's recent verdict, giving the go-ahead for the project, will not be a consideration for the bank to resume its funding discontinued in March, 1993, he added.

Construction work on the Rs 180 billion project, the biggest dam to be built under the Narmada multi-purpose hydel scheme, resumed Tuesday with Union Home Minister L K Advani formally launching work.

In view of the controversy surrounding the project, the bank had in 1991 appointed an independent review team to investigate environmental and social problems related to it.

The team, headed by former UNDP director Bradford Morse, concluded in June 1992 that the project was ''fundamentally flawed'' and that the bank should "step back" from it.

The bank had in 1985 approved a $450 million loan for the Sardar Sarovar dam. Two tranches were given and a credit of $275 million for the second phase of the canal network was under process when the bank withdrew from the project.

UNI

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