- At the very outset, we would like to appreciate ADB in doing this analysis and sharing the information publicly.
The costs
- We are astonished by the fact that $5 mn (2023 prices) was spent on the project since the complaint was filed with CRP until it was closed prematurely in 2018.
- The expenses listed in Table 21 can be broken down as follows:
- 1% for staff salaries, consultancies and studies (which should have been carried out before the project was approved, and outcomes of these studies were never shared with the complainants) while people did not get anything significant. Despite these huge costs, people continue to suffer and their lives have not improved since the time they complaint to CRP.
- ADB assumed that “The project area is a plain of barren, sandy land with no human settlements and no significant vegetation or wildlife” (Summary Environmental Impact Assessment) and it took a CRP complaint for them to recognise that there are people living there and their livelihood was depended on where they live.
- Interestingly, the complainants’ expenses mentioned in the table seem to be the tea CRP offered to them during the meetings since no other expenses, including travel was met by CRP.
- The livelihood expenses, even though a paltry amount, never resulted into anything. Facilities like water supply provided by CGPL, which is captured in Table 25 as annual savings of INR 1.89 million was discontinued by CGPL immediately after the IFC vs Jam judgement was delivered in February 2019. While the report claims INR 1.89 mn savings for 133 families, the fact remains that ADB did not even care to check whether the water supply still continues or not. Today they are forced to buy drinking water from the market, incurring large amount of money from their pockets.
- Another claim of ‘all-weather road resulting from the RAP implementation’ is yet again a hallow claim. A couple of monsoons back the road was heavily damaged and CGPL did not care to repair it, leaving people to navigate through slush and broken roads. Table 23 claims an annual saving of INR 0.98 million. This is another example of ADB either being completely disconnected from the ground realities or willingly being misled by the CGPL!
- Despite all these, even if we take for granted the expenses incurred for the communities, just the CRP professional fees are nearly 5 times more what was spent on communities, where benefits to the community was zero. If this is not wasteful and unjustifiable expenditure, we do not know what else it is! It looks like the complaints to CRP are more to justify the salaries than for any remedy for the complainants.
Engagement with CRP
- The analysis says that “…the complainants and the NGO representatives participated actively during the 3-year RAP implementation period.” (Page 29). It would be good to recall the response of complainants to the RAP. They said, “From a position of self-sufficient communities we are made to seek charity from the company and ADB now. Our dignity is ripped off. Whatever is prepared in the name of an Action Plan is insult to injury. We do not have any option but to reject this Action Plan. Unless we see an action plan which addresses the fundamental findings of CRP, where we are a part of the planning, implementation and monitoring, we will continue our struggle for justice.”
- They urged the ADB to “to engage in a process, in consultation with the affected people, to develop an action plan based on the findings of CRP and with a genuine intend to mitigate the impacts resulted from their investment in Tata Mundra project.”
- The hope that ADB and CRP will engage in a genuine process is what led people to engage with CRP during the process.
Consultations
- At no stage the communities were consulted – before approving the project, when the action plan was made, on the progress of any compliance by the company or before closing the case.
- They were taken for a ride, while the project was justified in the pretext that it “… will undoubtedly provide significant economic benefits to the state and the country. It will make its best effort to minimize the environmental impacts unavoidably associated with power generation.”
Complaint closure
- Despite significant non-compliance reported by CRP, its unilateral decision to close down the project raises many questions? What did CRP achieve after spending 5 years on the case and despite spending $5 mn in the process? How did CRP’s process benefit the people? If CRP and ADB are so powerless to make their client insist on compliance, how does it ensure that things will be any different in other and future investments? Why should any community anywhere have confidence in CRP that they will be adequately heard and their complaints satisfactorily address?
- That the client repaid the loan is a lame excuse to close down the case, for the reason that while the loan was active there wasn’t anything significant done by CRP to address the issues. Nor in any legal contract a client can escape consequences for what they done/not done after taking a loan, just because they repaid it.
CRP process a waste of time for complainants and wasteful expenditure
- People would not have knocked at the doors of CRP if they had another option. ADB invested in the project without the knowledge or approval of the people. It took many years after the investment that people even knew about it. From a location where there is history of violence against religious minorities, which discriminates complainants on the basis of their religion and food habits, they took huge courage to make this complaint, risking reprehension, social and economic boycott. They put faith in the CRP process. They patiently engaged with the process for 5 long years to be told that, despite serious non-compliance, CRP is closing the case and moving on.
- This is a joke on the people and natural justice. What ADB and CRP have done in CGPL is a warning to rest of the communities wherever ADB is investing.
- It’s not too late. People are still there, continue to suffer for the bad decision of investors like ADB. Nothing stops ADB from reopening the case once again and ensure that the people are adequately remedied.
Submitted by:
Machimar Adhikaar Sangharsh Sangathan (Contact: Bharat Patel – bharatp1977@gmail.com)
Centre for Financial Accountability (Contact: Joe Athialy – joe@cenfa.org)