Gujarat government had planned to complete the works of Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam by the Golden Jubilee year celebrations in 2010. However yesterday at the end of the debate on Narmada and Water resourced department, minister Nitin Patel said that it will take five more years to complete the Narmada project.

The minister blamed the UPA government at the Centre and past governments in the state fot the delay.

He said, “The Central government’s authority says that construction of pillars on the Narmada dam to set up radial gates would lead to extra submergence in the upstream. This is completely wrong as there is going to be no extra submergence. Raising the dam height is getting unnecessarily delayed. As many as 14 irrigation projects have been declared national projects, but not Narmada. The state has already spent more than Rs 28,000 crore for the project, and another Rs 10,000 crore are needed to be spent. While all the other national projects are getting 90 per cent funding from the Centre, our Narmada project has to be funded by the state. This is also a reason for the delay. This situation is depriving Gujarat of 580 crore cubic metres of water annually, when Narmada dam reaches the full reservoir level of 138.68 metres. At 121.92 metres today, we are able store just 157 crore cubic metres, or one-fourth. Though we have completed the powerhouse, we are unable to use it fully because of lack of height of the dam.”