Gujarat starts raising dam height

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, MAY 25. The Gujarat Government has begun work on raising the height of the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam by building three-metre high humps, ignoring the reservations expressed by the riparian States of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and the panels on rehabilitation and environment under the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) chaired by the Union Water Resources Secretary.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan leader, Ms. Medha Patkar, who is in Delhi, lashed out against the decision and the manner in which it was taken. She said, ``It is illegal, inhuman and fatal. There are no figures of the people who will be submerged by this, when as per the Government's own estimate people are yet to be rehabilitated at 90 metres. After the Supreme Court decision allowing reconstruction, it has become entirely their game, their rules and their field. This is their arrogance because there is no channel for redress.''

At the NCA meeting held at Indore earlier this month, the Gujarat Government pressed for raising three-metre high humps at an elevation of the existing 90 metres, despite Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra objecting that this would add to the effective height of the dam, resulting in larger areas getting submerged from the backwater effect during the monsoon. This amounted to flouting the Supreme Court order on rehabilitation of the affected people.

Highly-placed sources in the Ministry of Water Resources told The Hindu that the NCA chairman, Mr. V.N. Navlawala, who incidentally is from Gujarat, took an opinion from the Attorney-General on this.

In fact, in a strange manner of the executive seeking instruction from the judiciary, the NCA decided to take legal opinion from the Attorney-General and, in his absence, from the lawyer who represented the Union Government in Narmada Bachao Andolan's writ in the Supreme Court!

Apparently, Mr. Navlawala took the ``technical'' opinion of the Central Water Commission and the Central Water Power Research Station at Pune and reached the conclusion that during the non- flood period the water level would be maintained at 90 metres. ``But when there will be floods, there will be floods.''

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