World Bank indicted on 29 charges of human rights abuse and environmental damages in India, according to a study.

A 13-member panel of the Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group, consisting of prominent Indian and international jurists, economists, scientists, retired government officials, and social and religious leaders, have found the World Bank guilty of harming the environment and lowering the standard of living for most Indians.

Charges in the final report include -- failure in its mission to reduce poverty, advocacy of policies which contribute to increased hunger, agricultural crisis, and deliberate posting of former staff in the Indian bureaucracy in order to influence policy and diluting Indian environmental legislation.

"The evidence and depositions we have witnessed presents a disturbing picture of increased and needless human suffering since 1991 among hundreds of millions of India's poorest in rural areas and in the cities.

"It is clear that a significant number of Indian government policies and projects financed and influenced by the World Bank have contributed directly and/or indirectly to this increased impoverishment and suffering," the World Bank Tribunal Secretariat's release said in Mumbai on Thursday.

"All this has taken place while a minority of India's population that constitutes the middle class and rich has enjoyed the fruits of an economic boom. . . India and the international community must join to hold the World Bank accountable for policies and projects that in practice directly contradict its mandate of alleviating poverty for the poorest", the release said.

From September 21 to 24, 2007, the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus was the venue for an Independent People's Tribunal on the World Bank Group in India.

It was the first time a broad spectrum of Indian society has come together to look at the damage caused by the World Bank to the country as a whole, Deepika D'Souza, secretariat of the Independent Tribunal said.

Affected communities, expert witnesses, and over 40 concerned groups presented testimonies in order to evaluate the impact of the World Bank across 26 sectors of social and economic development in India.

After reviewing, the jury has put together an extensive and substantiated list of 29 specific charges against the Bank. These findings are of critical importance in light of the pace in which current development policies are changing the country.

"We hope that such a strong statement from this distinguished group will contribute significantly to the debate on the legitimacy of the Bank's operations in the country and as an institution," D'Souza said.

The Tribunal process quickly inspired similar processes in The Hague, Netherlands and in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she added.