VIJAYAWADA: The fate of World Bank funding for construction of Amaravati still hangs in balance as the State government is reportedly mulling ‘to withdraw’ its application to the financial institution. Sources said that a proposal to go ahead with the capital construction without seeking World Bank assistance could be put before Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu to enable him to take a final call call on it.
However, Principal Secretary (CRDA) Ajay Jain rubbished the development and said the government is actively pursuing the World Bank funding for the capital project. “There is no truth in such reports. We are expecting the (World Bank) funding by April or May,”he told TNIE. Another CRDA official said representatives of the bank responded positively when CRDA commissioner Cherukuri Sreedhar recently participated in the World Bank Summit - 2018 held in Washington, USA.
For the record, the State government had initially sent a proposal to the World Bank in January, 2016 seeking a loan of about Rs 7,000 crore. Later, in May, 2016, it revised the proposal to Rs 3,300 crore, which has since been pending.
While the CRDA has maintained all this while that an ‘in-principle approval’ has been given by the World Bank, the status of the proposal still remains to be in the appraisal stage. Union finance minister Arun Jaitley too, in a reply in Parliament in January, 2018, stated that the project was in the appraisal stage. Preliminary assessments and studies are underway, he said. The complaints raised by the capital region farmers alleging that the land was forcibly taken from them, which the World Bank is probing into, also added to the delay.As the WB is delaying the issue and the private banks are coming forward to provide loans, the government is said to be contemplating withdrawal of its proposal.