World Bank to compensate its lapses on forest scheme

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">hyderabad: in the light of serious allegations of violation of world bank directives in the implementation of the joint forest management (jfm) programme, leading to the loss of livelihood for the people, the world bank agreed to compensate for the loss under its resettlement policy. world bank country director edwin r lim agreed that “the project should ensure that people do not lose incomes or access to resources or livelihood opportunities�.the world bank official, in a letter to the apngo jfm network co convener satya srinivas on march 26, said the bank had entered into an ‘agreement’ with the government to compensate the affected people. the issue had been hanging fire for sometime with objections raised by the apngo jfm that the operational directives of the bank had been violated, leading to displacement of people as part of the bank’s development project. according to srinivas, the forest department implementing the jfm project had claimed to have retrieved 32,423.72 hectares of “encroached land�. srinivas in a letter to lim had alleged that this implied that tribals had been evicted from lands under their occupation for <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">podu</span> (shifting) cultivation in the name of vana samrakshana samithis. according to the bank’s operational directive on the involuntary resettlement, “displaced persons should be compensated for their losses at full replacement cost prior to the actual move�. according a senior forest department official there was no compensation paid to the displaced persons under the jfm project. however, the department has come out with a go ms no.10 on february 5 on “relief and rehabilitation policy and tribal development strategy� under the community forest management (cfm) project to be implemented by the government. the policy is for “mitigating any adverse impact due to the project�, based on a social and environmental assessment study mentioned in the government order. </div> </div>