Narmada Dam Project
Encyclopedia
The Sardar Sarovar Dam is a dam
on the Narmada River
near Navagam
, Gujarat, India
. It is the largest dam and part of the Narmada Valley Project, a large hydraulic engineering
project involving the construction of a series of large irrigation
and hydroelectric
multi purpose dam
s on the Narmada River. The project took form in 1979 as part of a development scheme to increase irrigation and produce hydroelectricity.
It is the 30th largest dams planned on river Narmada, Sardar Sarovar Dam (SSD) is the largest structure to be built. It has a proposed final height of 136.5 m (447.8 ft). The project will irrigate more than 18000 km² (6,949.8 sq mi), most of it in drought
prone areas of Kutch and Saurashtra. Critics maintain that its negative environmental impacts outweigh its benefits. It has created discord between its government planners and the citizens group Narmada Bachao Andolan
.
was initially a funder of the SSD, but withdrew in 1994. The Narmada Dam has been the centre of controversy and protest since the late 1980s.
One such protest takes center stage in the Spanner films documentary Drowned Out
(2002), which follows one tribal family who decide to stay at home and drown rather than make way for the Narmada Dam.
An earlier documentary film is called A Narmada Diary (1995) by Anand Patwardhan
and Simantini Dhuru. The efforts of NBA to seek social and environmental justice for those most directly affected by the Sardar Sarover Dam construction feature prominently in this award winning film (Filmfare Award for Best Documentary-1996).
The figurehead of much of the protest is Medha Patkar
, the leader of the "Narmada Bachao Andolan
," the "Save Narmada Movement." The movement was cemented in 1989, and was awarded the Right Livelihood Award
in 1991.
Support for the protests also came from Indian author Arundhati Roy
, who wrote the extended essay "The Greater Common Good" in protest of the Narmada Dam Project; the essay was reprinted in her book The Cost of Living. In that essay, Roy states:
(MoEF) of the Government of India to assess the planning and implementation of environmental safeguards with respect to the Sardar Sarovar (SSP) and Indira Sagar projects (ISP) on the Narmada River. It is a clear finding of the egregious failure of the government machinery on virtually all the aspects studied.
The report covers the status of compliances on catchment area treatment (CAT), flora and fauna and carrying capacity upstream, command area development (CAD), compensatory afforestation and human health aspects in project impact areas. The report is a severe indictment of the governments of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and of the bodies set up by these governments to implement the projects for the ‘integrated development' of the Narmada Valley. The report is peppered with phrases like ‘gross violation', ‘negligence', ‘highly unsatisfactory,' ‘inadequate,' ‘serious lapse' and ‘non compliance'.
It states in strong and unequivocal terms that, with respect to virtually all of the aspects under consideration, compliance is either highly inadequate or absent altogether. A partial exception is compensatory afforestation. Construction, on the other hand, has been proceeding apace: the ISP is complete and the SSP nearing completion. The report recommends that no further reservoir-filling be done at either SSP or ISP; that no further work be done on canal construction; and that even irrigation from the existing network be stopped forthwith until failures of compliance on the various environmental parameters have been fully remedied.
in 2000 were:
"The argument in favour of the Sardar Sarovar Project is that the benefits are so large that they substantially outweigh the costs of the immediate human and environmental disruption. Without the dam, the long term costs for people would be much greater and lack of an income source for future generations would put increasing pressure on the environment. If the waters of the Narmada river continuous to flow to the sea unused there appears to be no alternative to escalating human deprivation, particularly in the dry areas of Gujarat.
The project has the potential to feed as many as 20 million people, provide domestic and industrial water for about 30 million, employ about 1 million, and provide valuable peak electric power in an area with high unmet power demand (farm pumps often get only a few hours power per day). In addition, recent research shows substantial economic multiplier effects (investment and employment triggered by development) from irrigation development. Set against the futures of about 70,000 project affected people, even without the multiplier effect, the ratio of beneficiaries to affected persons is well over 100:1."
The dam will irrigate 17920 km² (6,919 sq mi) of land spread over 12 districts, 62 talukas and 3393 villages (75% of which is drought-prone areas) in Gujarat and 730 km² (281.9 sq mi) in the arid areas of Barmer
and Jalore
districts of Rajasthan
. The dam will also provide flood protection to riverine reaches measuring 30000 ha (74,131.5 acre) covering 210 villages and Bharuch
city and a population of 400,000 in Gujarat.
Dam
A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...
on the Narmada River
Narmada River
The Narmada , also called Rewa is a river in central India and the fifth largest river in the Indian subcontinent. It is the third largest river that completely flows within India after Ganges and Godavari...
near Navagam
Songadh
Fort Songadh is a city and a municipality in Tapi district in the Indian state of Gujarat. It has previously been known as "Soneri Gadh, later being abbreviated to the now common Songadh.-Geography:Songadh is located at...
, Gujarat, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. It is the largest dam and part of the Narmada Valley Project, a large hydraulic engineering
Hydraulic engineering
This article is about civil engineering. For the mechanical engineering discipline see Hydraulic machineryHydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive...
project involving the construction of a series of large irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
and hydroelectric
Hydroelectricity
Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water. It is the most widely used form of renewable energy...
multi purpose dam
Dam
A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...
s on the Narmada River. The project took form in 1979 as part of a development scheme to increase irrigation and produce hydroelectricity.
It is the 30th largest dams planned on river Narmada, Sardar Sarovar Dam (SSD) is the largest structure to be built. It has a proposed final height of 136.5 m (447.8 ft). The project will irrigate more than 18000 km² (6,949.8 sq mi), most of it in drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
prone areas of Kutch and Saurashtra. Critics maintain that its negative environmental impacts outweigh its benefits. It has created discord between its government planners and the citizens group Narmada Bachao Andolan
Narmada Bachao Andolan
Narmada Bachao Andolan is social movement consisting of tribal people, adivasis, farmers, environmentalists and human rights activists against the Sardar Sarovar Dam being built across the Narmada river, Gujarat, India....
.
Protest
The dam is one of India's most controversial dam projects and its environmental impact and net costs and benefits are widely debated. The World BankWorld Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
was initially a funder of the SSD, but withdrew in 1994. The Narmada Dam has been the centre of controversy and protest since the late 1980s.
One such protest takes center stage in the Spanner films documentary Drowned Out
Drowned Out
Drowned Out is a 2002 documentary by Franny Armstrong about the Sardar Sarovar Project. Shot over three years, Drowned Out follows one family’s stand against a government dam project which is set to destroy their home and their village.-Plot:...
(2002), which follows one tribal family who decide to stay at home and drown rather than make way for the Narmada Dam.
An earlier documentary film is called A Narmada Diary (1995) by Anand Patwardhan
Anand Patwardhan
Anand Patwardhan is an Indian documentary filmmaker, known for his activism through social action documentaries on topics such as corruption, slum dwellers, nuclear arms race, citizen activism and communalism...
and Simantini Dhuru. The efforts of NBA to seek social and environmental justice for those most directly affected by the Sardar Sarover Dam construction feature prominently in this award winning film (Filmfare Award for Best Documentary-1996).
The figurehead of much of the protest is Medha Patkar
Medha Patkar
Medha Patkar is an Indian social activist. She is known for her role in Narmada Bachao Andolan. She has also filed a public interest petition in the Bombay high court against Lavasa along with other members of National Alliance of People's Movements , including Anna Hazare.-Personal life:Medha...
, the leader of the "Narmada Bachao Andolan
Narmada Bachao Andolan
Narmada Bachao Andolan is social movement consisting of tribal people, adivasis, farmers, environmentalists and human rights activists against the Sardar Sarovar Dam being built across the Narmada river, Gujarat, India....
," the "Save Narmada Movement." The movement was cemented in 1989, and was awarded the Right Livelihood Award
Right Livelihood Award
The Right Livelihood Award, also referred to as the "Alternative Nobel Prize", is a prestigious international award to honour those "working on practical and exemplary solutions to the most urgent challenges facing the world today". The prize was established in 1980 by Jakob von Uexkull, and is...
in 1991.
Support for the protests also came from Indian author Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays...
, who wrote the extended essay "The Greater Common Good" in protest of the Narmada Dam Project; the essay was reprinted in her book The Cost of Living. In that essay, Roy states:
Height issues
- In February 1999, the Supreme Court of India gave the go ahead for the dam's height to be raised to 88 m (288.7 ft) from the initial 80 m (262.5 ft).
- In October 2000 again, in a 2 to 1 majority judgment in the Supreme Court, the government was allowed to construct the dam up to 90 m (295.3 ft).
- In May 2002, the Narmada Control Authority approved increasing the height of the dam to 95 m (311.7 ft).
- In March 2004, the Authority allowed a 15 m (49.2 ft) height increase to 110 m (360.9 ft).
- In March 2006, the Narmada Control Authority gave clearance for the height of the dam to increased from 110.64 m (363 ft) to 121.92 m (400 ft). This came after 2003 when the Supreme Court of India refused to enlargen the height of the dam again.
The Supreme Court decision
Despite popular protest, the Supreme Court gave clearance for the height to be increased to 121.92 m (400 ft), but in the same judgment Mr. Justice Bharucha gave directions to Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra (the Grievance Redressal Authorities of Gujarat) that before further construction begins, they should certify (after inspection) that all those displaced by the raise in height of 5 metres have already been satisfactorily rehabilitated, and also that suitable vacant land for rehabilitating them is already in the possession of the respective States. This process shall be repeated for every successive five metre increase in height.Report of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF)
The Second Interim Report of the Experts' Committee set up by the Ministry of Environment and ForestsMinistry of Environment and Forests
The Ministry of Environment and Forests is an Indian government ministry. The Minister of Environment and Forests holds cabinet rank as a member of the Council of Ministers...
(MoEF) of the Government of India to assess the planning and implementation of environmental safeguards with respect to the Sardar Sarovar (SSP) and Indira Sagar projects (ISP) on the Narmada River. It is a clear finding of the egregious failure of the government machinery on virtually all the aspects studied.
The report covers the status of compliances on catchment area treatment (CAT), flora and fauna and carrying capacity upstream, command area development (CAD), compensatory afforestation and human health aspects in project impact areas. The report is a severe indictment of the governments of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and of the bodies set up by these governments to implement the projects for the ‘integrated development' of the Narmada Valley. The report is peppered with phrases like ‘gross violation', ‘negligence', ‘highly unsatisfactory,' ‘inadequate,' ‘serious lapse' and ‘non compliance'.
It states in strong and unequivocal terms that, with respect to virtually all of the aspects under consideration, compliance is either highly inadequate or absent altogether. A partial exception is compensatory afforestation. Construction, on the other hand, has been proceeding apace: the ISP is complete and the SSP nearing completion. The report recommends that no further reservoir-filling be done at either SSP or ISP; that no further work be done on canal construction; and that even irrigation from the existing network be stopped forthwith until failures of compliance on the various environmental parameters have been fully remedied.
Projected benefits
The benefits of the dam as listed in the Judgement of Supreme Court of IndiaSupreme Court of India
The Supreme Court of India is the highest judicial forum and final court of appeal as established by Part V, Chapter IV of the Constitution of India...
in 2000 were:
"The argument in favour of the Sardar Sarovar Project is that the benefits are so large that they substantially outweigh the costs of the immediate human and environmental disruption. Without the dam, the long term costs for people would be much greater and lack of an income source for future generations would put increasing pressure on the environment. If the waters of the Narmada river continuous to flow to the sea unused there appears to be no alternative to escalating human deprivation, particularly in the dry areas of Gujarat.
The project has the potential to feed as many as 20 million people, provide domestic and industrial water for about 30 million, employ about 1 million, and provide valuable peak electric power in an area with high unmet power demand (farm pumps often get only a few hours power per day). In addition, recent research shows substantial economic multiplier effects (investment and employment triggered by development) from irrigation development. Set against the futures of about 70,000 project affected people, even without the multiplier effect, the ratio of beneficiaries to affected persons is well over 100:1."
The dam will irrigate 17920 km² (6,919 sq mi) of land spread over 12 districts, 62 talukas and 3393 villages (75% of which is drought-prone areas) in Gujarat and 730 km² (281.9 sq mi) in the arid areas of Barmer
Barmer, Rajasthan
Barmer is the headquarters of the Barmer district in the state of Rajasthan, India. It is a city and a municipality.-Origin of name:...
and Jalore
Jalore
Jalor, also known as Jalore , is a city in Rajasthan state of western India. It is the administrative headquarters of Jalor District.- Geography :...
districts of Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
. The dam will also provide flood protection to riverine reaches measuring 30000 ha (74,131.5 acre) covering 210 villages and Bharuch
Bharuch
Bharuch , also known as Broach, is the oldest city in Gujarat, situated at the mouth of the holy river Narmada. Bharuch is the administrative headquarters of Bharuch District and a municipality of more than 1,50,000 inhabitants. As Bharuch is a major seaport city, a number of trade activities have...
city and a population of 400,000 in Gujarat.
Solar power generation
Government of Gujarat plans to generate solar power from placing solar panels over the canal making it beneficial for the villages around to get power and also helping to reduce the evaporation of precious water. The first phase consists of covering 25 km to generate 25MW of power.External links
- Friends of River Narmada
- Official Website of NVDA - Narmada Valley Development Authority
- Official website of Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited
- Regularly updated news clippings about Narmada dams
- Concluding letter from Independent Review (also known as Morse Committee) constituted by World Bank in 1992 to assess Sardar Sarovar Dam Project djvu format or in pdf format.