Date:14/01/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/01/14/stories/2005011405850400.htm

Andhra Pradesh

Officials in a fix over World Bank queries

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, JAN. 13. Power sector officials in the State are "embarrassed" over visiting teams of the World Bank raising issues connected with the sector during discussions with the Government at a time when no loan was taken by AP Genco or Transco.

A World Bank team, which visited Hyderabad recently for an appraisal of the activities undertaken under the "Structural Readjustment Loan", chose to deliberate with Energy officials also, much to the surprise of the latter.

The team tried to impress upon the Energy officials the need to restrict free power supply benefit to small/marginal farmers only. This rather irked the Energy officials because the Transco had cleared loans taken from the World Bank for implementing reforms long ago while the AP Genco did not take a loan at all, a senior official said.

Does the bank's insistence on restricted benefit amount to a "conditionality" that Left parties decry time and again. "Yes, it may be a conditionality" sought in return for the loans taken for the other sectors. The entity through which the loans are routed, after all, is the State Government, the official said.