World Bank Team On Cfc Phaseout

A World Bank team is arriving here on December 7 for an appraisal of the financial requirement to switch over to friendly technology by the industries producing cholorofluorocarbons (CFC) and other ozone depleting substances within the timeframe set under the Montreal Protocol of 1987.

The nine-member team, led by N Hadjitarkhani, will be in the country till December 12 and will visit the plants of all the four major CFC manufacturing companies.

The executive committee (Excom) of the Montreal Protocol Fund, a multilateral funding agency for providing grants-in-aid to meet the incremental cost of phaseout operations, recently gave its go-ahead to India to submit funding proposals for assistance. Excom will take them up at its meeting in March.

This is considered to be a breakthrough since so far the grants under the protocol were coming only to the CFC consuming industries. A four-member team had earlier visited India to collect data on the status of the production industry. It currently preparing its report.

Excom, at its last meeting, deferred a decision on extending concessional finance to the CFC producers in the face of opposition from India and other developing countries. These countries want assistance as grants which is non-repayable, as against loans which is payable with interest.

Their fear is that a loan of any kind, even if it is interest-free, would add to their burden and lead to a debt trap.

But the industrialised countries want to rush loan for a quick phaseout of CFC in the developing countries.