Narmada is the fifth largest river in
India and largest West flowing river of the Indian Peninsula.Its annual flow approximates to the combined flow of
the rivers Sutlej, Beas and Ravi.
Originating from the Maikala ranges at Amarkantak in Madhya Pradesh, it
flows Westwards over a length of about 1312 km. before draining into the Gulf
of Cambay, 50 km. West of Bharuch City. The first 1077 km. stretch is in Madhya
Pradesh and the next 35 km. stretch of
the river forms the boundary between the States of Madhya Pradesh and
Maharasthra. Again, the next 39 km.
forms the boundary between Maharasthra and Gujarat and the last stretch of 161
km. lies in Gujarat. The Basin area of this river is about 1 lac sq. km. The
utilisation of this river basin, however, is hardly about 4%. Most of the water
of this peninsula river goes into the
sea. Inspite of the huge potential,
there was hardly any development of the Narmada water resources prior to
independence.
History of
Sardar Sarovar Dam :
·
It was a dream
for Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel to build a dam on Narmada and utilize the full
potential of the water flowing through River Narmada.
·
In 1946, the then
Government of Central Provinces and Berar and the then Government of Bombay
requested the Central Waterways, Irrigation and Navigation Commission (CWINC)
to take up investigations on the Narmada river system for basin-wise
development of the river with flood control, irrigation, power and extension of
navigation as the objectives in view.
·
in 1948, the
Central Ministry of Works, Mines & Power appointed an Ad-hoc Committee
headed by Shri A.N. Khosla, Chairman, CWINC to study the projects and to
recommend the priorities. Based on the recommendations of the aforesaid Ad-hoc
Committee, estimates for investigations of the Bargi, Tawa, Punasa
(Narmadasagar) and Broach Projects were sanctioned by the Government of India
in March, 1949.
·
The Central Water
& Power Commission carried out a study of the hydroelectric potential of
the Narmada basin in the year 1955. After the investigations were carried out
by the Central Water & Power commission, the Navagam site was finally
decided upon in consultation with the erstwhile Government of Bombay for the
construction of the dam.
·
With the
formation of the State of Gujarat on 1st May, 1960, the Narmada Project stood
transferred to that State. Accordingly,
the Government of Gujarat gave an administrative approval to Stage-I of the
·
Narmada Project
in February, 1961. The Project was then
inaugurated by late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on 5th April, 1961.
·
Narmada
Water Disputes Tribunal was formed on 6th October 1969 and its
primary objective was to set out conditions regarding the resettlement and
rehabilitation of those displaced by the dams.
·
As
per the tribunal’s decision released by Indian government after 10 years of
investigation on 12th Oct 1979 30 major, 135 medium, and 3000 small
dams, were granted approval for construction, including raising the height of
the Sardar Sarovar
dam. This decision was motivated
by the assumption that it would provide water to around forty million people,
irrigation, and electricity to people in the region.
·
The
construction of commenced in 1985 and the major objective of this dam was to
increase irrigation in the concerned areas and and produce hydroelectricity.
·
In
1985 Medha Patkar and her colleagues noticed that the construction of dam lacs
the basic & crucial studies related to its impact on environment and
peoples residing in the area. the officials related to the project had not even
checked the land records and updated them, The people who were going to be
affected by the construction of the dam were given no information but the offer
for rehabilitation. Villagers weren't consulted and weren't asked for a
feedback on the assessment that had taken place. And thus Narmada Bachao
Andolan (NA) was formed.
·
The
World Bank (WB) began working on the Narmada Project after it got clearance
from the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal. The team sent by WB to assess the
project on technical & economic terms didn’t focus on social &
environmental aspects.
·
Although
the WB has realized the harm it has done by sanctioning the loan and revised
its policy to ensure that, after a reasonable transition period, the displaced
people regain at least their previous standard of living. the relocation
process was flawed. Several tribal people have been harmed by the project.
·
In
1985 the World Bank sanctioned the loan to state governments despite of knowing
the harms this project may create but also said, "The argument in favor 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.
·
Medha
Patkar and other protesters testified on the Bank's role in Washington D.C in
1989. This led to a build-up of pressure on the Bank to set an independent
review to assess the situation at hand. A lot of support was withdrawn from the
project after this. The Indian Government canceled the loan sanctioned by the
World Bank on March 31, 1993.
·
Since
the inception, this project has been controversial and so it took more than 5
decades for it to complete. Following a number of controversial cases before
the Supreme Court of
India (1999, 2000, 2003), by
2014 the Narmada Control Authority had approved a series of changes in the
final height – and the associated displacement caused by the increased
reservoir, from the original 80 m (260 ft) to a final 163 m
(535 ft) from foundation.
·
As
per the decision given by Supreme Court, which was released by Government after
7 years delay The court introduced a mechanism to monitor the progress of
resettlement pari passu (without
partiality) with the raising of the
height of the dam through the Grievance Redressal Authorities (GRA) in each
party state. It has paved the way for completing the project to attain full
envisaged benefits. The court's final line of the order states, "Every
endeavour shall be made to see that the project is completed as expeditiously
as possible"
·
Height Increases :
o In February 1999, the Supreme Court of
India gave the go ahead for the dam's height to be raised to 88 m
(289 ft) from the initial 80 m (260 ft).
o 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 (300 ft).[2]
o In May 2002, the Narmada Control
Authority approved increasing the height of the dam to 95 m (312 ft).
o In March 2004, the Authority allowed a
15 m (49 ft) height increase to 110 m (360 ft).
o In March 2006, the Narmada Control
Authority gave clearance for the height of the dam to be increased from
110.64 m (363.0 ft) to 121.92 m (400.0 ft). This came after
2003 when the Supreme Court of India refused allow the height of the dam to
increase again.
o In August 2013, heavy rains raised the
reservoir level to 131.5 m (431 ft), which forced 7,000 villagers
upstream along the Narmada River to relocate.[14]
o On June 2014, Narmada Control
Authority gave the final clearance to raise the height from 121.92 m
(400.0 ft) metres to 138.68 m (455.0 ft)[15]
o The Narmada Control Authority decided
on June 17 2017 to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam to its fullest
height by ordering the closure of 30 Gates
o
One
of the 30 dams planned on river Narmada, Sardar Sarovar Dam (SSD) is the
largest structure to be built.
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
Justice Mr. 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.
Benefits
of Sardar Sarovar Dam
·
It
is a gravity dam on
the Narmada river near Navagam, Gujarat in India. Situated to the south
west of Malwa plateau,
the dissected hill tracts culminate in the Mathwar hills, located in Alirajpur district
of Madhya Pradesh. Below these hills Narmada river flows through a
long, terrific gorge. This gorge extends into Gujarat where the river is tapped
by the Sardar Sarovar dam.
·
Four
Indian states namely Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and Rajasthan are
mainly benefitted by its irrigation and electrical power supply
·
It
is a part of the Narmada Valley Project, a large hydraulic
engineering project involving
the construction of a series of large irrigation and hydroelectric multi-purpose
dams on the Narmada river.
·
Irrigation
o
The
project will irrigate more than 18,000 km2 (6,900 sq mi),
most of it in droughtprone
areas of Kutch and Saurashtra. The Sardar Sarovar Project will provide
irrigation facilities to 18.45 lac ha. of land, covering 3112 villages of 73
talukas in 15 districts of Gujarat.
o
It will also
irrigate 2,46,000 ha. of land in the strategic desert districts of Barmer and
Jallore in Rajasthan and 37,500 ha. in the tribal hilly tract of Maharashtra
through lift.
o
About 75% of the command area in Gujarat is
drought prone while entire command in Rajasthan is drought prone. Assured water
supply will soon make this area drought proof.
·
Power
o
There are two
power houses viz. River Bed Power House and Canal Head Power House with an
installed capacity of 1200 MW and 250 MW respectively.
o
The
dam's main power plant houses six 200 MW Francis
pump-turbines to generate
electricity and include a pumped-storage capability.
Additionally, a power plant on the intake for the main canal contains five
50 MW Kaplan turbine-generators.
o
The
total installed capacity of the power facilities is 1,450 MW. Its final
configuration is the second largest concrete gravity dam (by volume)
after Grand Coulee Dam in the US and has the world's third largest spillway discharging
capacity.
o
The power would
be shared by three states - Madhya Pradesh - 57%, Maharashtra - 27% and Gujarat
16%.
o
This will provide
a useful peaking power to western grid of the country which has very limited
hydel power production at present. A series of micro hydel power stations are
also planned on the branch canals where convenient falls are available.
·
Flood Protection
o
The
dam will also provide flood protection to riverine reaches measuring
30,000 ha (74,000 acres) covering 210 villages and Bharuch city and a population of 400,000 in Gujarat
·
Drinking Water Supply
o
A special
allocation of 0.86 MAF of water has been made to provide drinking water to 131
urban centres and 9633 villages (53% of total 18144 villages of Gujarat) within
and out-side command in Gujarat for present population of 28 million and
prospective population of over 40 million by the year 2021.
o
All the villages
and urban centres of arid region of Saurashtra and Kachchh and all "no
source" villages and the villages affected by salinity and fluoride in
North Gujarat will be benefited.
o
Water supply
requirement of several industries will also be met from the project giving a
boost to all-round production
·
Wild life
sanctuaries viz. "Shoolpaneshewar wild life sanctuary" on left Bank,
Wild Ass Sanctuary in little Rann of Kachchh, Black Buck National Park at
Velavadar, Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary in Kachchh, Nal Sarovar Bird
Sanctuary and Alia Bet at the mouth of River will be benefited.
·
SSP would
generate electricity. On completion, annual additional agricultural production
would be Rs. 1600 crores, power generation and water supply Rs. 175 crores,
aggregating about Rs. 2175 crores every year equivalent to about Rs. 6.0 crores
a day.
·
In addition,
there will be benefits of fisheries development, recreational facilities, water
supply for industries, agro industrial development, protection of conserved
forest from grazers and secondary benefits viz employment generation, increase
in vegetal cover in 3.4 M. Ham. of GCA, gains due to compensatory forest, tree
plantation 100 times and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) fixation to large extent by 70
times.
Source – Wikipedia, narmada.org, sardarsarovardam.org,
supreme court judgement on NBA Vs Union of India 2000.
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