The Prime Minister rebuffed the World Bank’s proposal on tiger conservation in India, thus negating the claim of the World Bank President Robert Zoellick who indicated otherwise, “As we launch this initiative, the Government of India has expressed its strong interest in working with us, ” in his speech at the ‘Signature Event’ which marked the launch of the World Bank’s Tiger Conservation Initiative on June 9, 2008 in Washington. “
This comes as a huge relief to conservationists as there was much apprehension that India would succumb to the World Bank lobby which was working overtime to make India part of its tiger conservation initiative, primarily because they desperately needed India’s involvement in the initiative to maintain their credibility—for all the problems and threats, India still harbours the maximum number of wild tigers.
The Government of India rejecting the World Bank (WB in short ) offer sound strange. I mean, when several NGO are running their show on the funds provided by the Multinational banks and industries. When several NGO’s in India have their offices located somewhere in the other part of the world. When the Importance of the word TIGERs and Leopards was made understood by the British national ( Jim Corbett ), till than we were branding these big cats as Aadamkhor ( man eaters ) irrespective of they were or not. When the Indian Tiger Conservation Programme is in its dark face, and every another day there are the reports of Tiger Poaching, Tiger Killing and other stuff. Whenever the FD probed, the only answer come across is the short of funds.THEN, WHY SHOULDN’T WE ACCEPT WORLD BANK OFFER TO FUND FOR THE TIGER CONSERVATION PROGRAMME IN INDIA?
Even the recent declaration of Indian Government providing 600 CR for such a giant project to protect 37000 Kms of Tiger Reserves and conserve the umbrella specie would be nothing, Most of amount would be spared for back office expenses, overhead expenses in administration and travel to delhi and State head quarter ( mantralaya or Sachivalaya, by the PA managers & TR Directors ). No amount would be paid towards afforestation , Reforestation and rehabilitation of Eligible people outside the TRs. No fencing or the boundary wall would be erected , where the man-animal come in conflicts.
Let us calculate 600 CR allotted for 5 years in 30 TRs of India is nothing more than 3.33 CR for every Tiger reserve. Every TR in this part of world had more than 2 CR of expenses on Admin and other expenses till 2005, now the situation is rather worst, the recent CAG report would state more than that much.
We should also consider that the WB is an organisation which is already active in many environmental projects in the several parts of World ( Specially wildlife rich African Sub-continent & Bio-diversity rich South-East Asia )
http://web.worldbank.org/external/projects/main?pagePK=218616&piPK=217470&theSitePK=40941&menuPK=224076&category=simsearch&pagenumber=1&pagesize=100&sortby=BOARDSORTDATE&sortorder=DESC&query=wildlife&status=ALL
and most of its project are either active or closed after its final completion. I did download the 2500 MB size of its report of project the WB carried in the several parts of Africa, South East Asia and other poor countries and I am quite convinced with it.