The Hindu : Front Page : Procedures violated for ADB loan: Karat

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Friday, Jan 12, 2007
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Procedures violated for ADB loan: Karat

Special Correspondent

CPI(M) has no objection to ADB loan, says Prakash Karat

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Prakash Karat said here on Thursday that there was violation of procedures in the manner in which the project agreement between the Asian Development Bank and the Kerala Government was signed on December 8 last.

Briefing reporters on the deliberations of the ongoing CPI(M) State committee meeting, Mr. Karat said Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan's statement that the agreement was signed before he or the State Cabinet could apply their mind to it was correct. "There was violation of procedures," he said and added that the matter should have been discussed at various levels, in the LDF and in the Cabinet, before the agreement was signed.

Mr. Karat said the CPI(M) State secretariat had examined the whole process and decided to ensure that due procedures of the Government and talks with coalition partners were gone through before the final approval for the project agreement was given. The CPI(M), he said, was not against taking loans from multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and the ADB, if they were project-specific. The party was opposed only to loans that involved structural adjustment programmes and it had adopted this stand at its 18th party congress held in Delhi.

Mr. Karat said the party had no objection to the ADB loan that the municipal corporations proposed to avail. The party State secretariat had discussed the matter twice in December 2005 and January 2006.

After some changes were made in the terms and conditions, the party secretariat decided to allow the Mayors of the municipal corporations to sign the agreement.

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