World Bank May Fund Other Andhra Projects as 'Compensation' for Dropping Amaravati Deal

Amaravati: After "dropping" its plan to extend a loan of $300 million (nearly Rs 2,065 crore) to Andhra Pradesh for the construction of Amaravati, the World Bank may fund other projects as "compensation".

A senior official from the Andhra Pradesh chief minister's office told News18 that there were enough indications to point that the Bank may provide funds for other sectors and may even increase the amount of aid.

The World Bank had earlier dropped the proposal of funding for the Amaravati Sustainable Infrastructure and Institutional Development Project, citing non-compliance of its policies, especially those related to settlements with affected parties.

The chance of increasing the quantum of loan was not ruled out by the Bank.

The main reasons behind the World Bank backing out of the Amaravati Capital City project were considered to be rampant corruption besides flouting of various socio-economic norms. The TDP government had invited tenders for infrastructure development even before the World Bank loan details were finalised.

The World Bank Team (Independent Accountability Mechanism), that had toured the proposed city area region from September 13 to 17, 2017, found many irregularities in the tender process, which were heavily loaded in favour of contractors, the official said.

The CRDA (Capital Region Development Authority) was asked to give an explanation by the Wold Bank Team which visited the place and conducted field-level investigation.

The World Bank team had submitted its report on September 27 and amended it on November 27, 2017. The report had undergone one more revision on June 26, 2018 and the final report was filed on March 29, 2019.

The team had to take up investigations following a spate of complaints from social organisations and voluntary organisations. It had split into five groups and had taken up investigations on each and every complaint received by them from every organisation and interacted with all sections concerned to elicit information and assess the gravity situation and authenticity of the complaint.