Green Energy Corridor and Grid Strengthening Project

It is important to engage suitable safeguards experts to ensure that high-quality reassessments are undertaken to align safeguards implementation to changes in the project scope. Changes in scope are common in the implementation of large power transmission projects and timely updating of all relevant project documents to reflect and address such changes is necessary. In this project, scope changes were made especially to utilize the large loan savings that resulted from the overestimation of the project costs at appraisal. These scope changes and the subsequent amendment to the loan agreement notwithstanding the project’s design and monitoring framework had not been revised. Moreover, even if safeguard assessments were undertaken prior to the approval of the scope changes, ADB was not notified by the executing agency, POWERGRID, about the presence of a protected area until succeeding environmental monitoring reports reflected such. The quality of the environmental assessments conducted for the scope changes came up short, reflecting the need to ensure that suitably qualified and experienced experts are engaged to undertake additional environmental assessments during project implementation. These assessment should meet the due diligence level required by ADB’s safeguard policy. Furthermore, it is also important that the cost of safeguards implementation be budgeted accurately.