The Hindu Business Line : British columnist smells a rat in DFID funding

A SENIOR British columnist has lashed out at his Government for huge DFID (Department for International Development) funding to Andhra Pradesh Government, which he alleged was aimed at making the State a laboratory for privatisation of public services and ultimately reassert the colonial hegemony.

"Andhra Pradesh gets £342 million through DFID," Mr Geroge Monbiot, the author of No Man's Land and Captive State and a well-known Guardian newspaper columnist, said.

Why this special interest on Andhra Pradesh?

Addressing a news conference here on Wednesday, Mr Monbiot said the whole idea was to open up business opportunities for the British companies that made huge profits thanks to the widespread privatisation of public services.

Relating the British experience, he said the privatisation of public services had led to complete breakdown of services. Criticising the Vision 2020 programme of the State Government, he said the programme would dispossess 20-25 million people from the land and leave them jobless.

"I am outraged and disgusted at the DFID funding of such programmes," he said. Moreover, the DFID's activities in a way were illegal in that they funded programmes that were not assessed for environmental impact. "It's illegal under British law," he said.

Mr Monbiot also alleged that DFID was comfortable with corruption as long as it promoted the interests of its companies and the efforts to re-establish the East India Company. And it is not comfortable with corruption when it acts otherwise, he said.

After succeeding in the laboratory of Andhra Pradesh, it will showcase it elsewhere. The motive is primarily to help the "super, super rich who fund the Labour Party" increase their profitability. He felt that the aid must not be directed from London.

Mr Monbiot is touring Andhra Pradesh after attending the World Social Forum meetings in Mumbai in the third week of January. His latest book, The Age of Consent, which advocated global democracy, was released in December.

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