India has a very large base of coal mining and associated thermal power generation projects and is on the verge of massive expansion1 . In the past, the World Bank has supported coal mining and power generation and accompanying environmental and rehabilitation programmes. Two of the World Bank funded programmes, the Singrauli Project and the East Parej Project, have been controversial because of the immense damage it has caused to the environment and many lapses have been highlighted in the rehabilitation programme. The efforts of several organizations forced the World Bank to field its Inspection Panel for investigation and the panel has indicted these project proponents for their negligence and has also recommended corrective measures. Now the implementation of these corrective measures is an issue of contention as there are signatures that these are not effectively undertaken.
This study which comes as a sequel to the efforts made by a numbers of groups to force the World Bank Management to adhere to the EIR review set up by the Bank itself. The principle objective is to investigate the current status of the environmental and social conditions and the status of the claims accepted by the inspection panel and compliance by the promoters Read Report
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