Several hundred protestors staged early morning demonstrations as street meetings got underway in Hyderabad against "anti-people policies" of the multilateral agency, officials and witnesses said.

Organisers said more than 2,000 people were expected to stage a main rally later Wednesday against the ADB and the World Bank's lending policies which they branded as anti-poor.

Wearing black headbands, brown and green jackets proclaiming "Destroy ADB" and "Go back ADB", the demonstrators, including women and children, shouted slogans against the Manila-based lender.

"ADB hands off our water, our health, our forests, our livelihood and our environment," a huge banner read.

"These agencies are undemocratic and push their own agenda without listening to our voices," said protestor Murad Hussian, head of a 70-member group from India's eastern state of West Bengal.

The People's Forum Against ADB, an umbrella group of more than 70 non-governmental organisations, also kicked off a "parallel session" in Hyderabad to highlight the plight of people displaced by ADB projects, lack of accountability by the ADB and other social issues.

"The ADB, like the World Bank, has become the custodian of private investment and the promoter and protector of corporate interests and profits," said Gururaja Budhya, a People's Forum spokesperson.

"The projects of ADB continue to displace hundreds of thousands of people across the region with little or no compensation," he said. "The ADB creates development refugees and manufactures poverty."

Budhya said a session on "Reclaiming Democracy" would be held in Hyderabad to bring to light how development projects bypass local governing bodies.

"In India and elsewhere in Asia we see a new trend of military guarding development projects funded by the multilateral agencies. This shows to what extent institutions such as ADB can go to support undemocratic institutions," he said.

On May 5, the People's Forum is planning a rally in the southern city of Hyderabad and more than 7,000 people are expected to attend, Budhya said.

More than 3,000 global delegates including finance ministers, business leaders and representatives from global organisations are attending the ADB meeting here.

Ann Quon, spokesperson for the ADB, said an explosion in Asian free-trade deals and their links to cutting poverty will top the agenda of the annual event.

"One of the main areas we are looking at is how regional cooperation and integration can help us fight poverty," she told AFP. "At the same time there is a proliferation of FTAs (free trade agreements) which has a snowball effect in the region. One has to try and make sense of it all."

During the ADB's 39th annual meeting the bank will ask members to try to aim for multilateral trade agreements, instead of country-to-country deals, Quon said.