Narmada dam’s construction work likely to resume soon

Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam’s construction work that has been stalled for last more than a year period, will resume in couple of month, most probably in May this year, Shri Dhruv Vijay Sinh, Secretary of Water Resources Ministry, Government of India hinted today while answering the questions of media here.

Shri Dhruv Vijay Sinh was on official visit to Narmada dam along with his team to participate in Sardar Sarovar Construction Advisory Committee’s meeting. Generally such meeting is held in New Delhi, however this time the 78th meeting was held at the ground zero.

When asked about Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s recent request to the Prime Minister for approval to speed up the construction work of gates of Narmada dam, Shri Dhruv Vijay Sinh said that Power of allowing further construction in Narmada dam is not with Prime Minister but with Narmada Control Authority which has been formed by the Supreme Court of India.

It should be mentioned here that Narmada dam’s present height is 121.92 meter. This mark was achieved before more than a year, but further work could not be started due to lack of permission of concerned advisory committee. Construction firm is ready with cement and steel for last one year.

Gujarat government had planned to complete the works of Sardar Sarovar Narmada dam by the Golden Jubilee year celebrations in 2010. However according to government’s estimate it will take five more years to complete the Narmada project. This was stated by minister Nitin Patel recently in state assembly.

The minister had 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.”

Last year the environmental sub-group of Narmada Control Authority (NCA) chaired by Union environment and forests secretary Vinay Sharma had cleared the decks for raising the Narmada dam height from the current 121.92 metres to 138.64 metres, which is the dam’s full reservoir level. The NCA agency had allowed 30 pillars to be raised on the dam, install radial gates between them and construct overhead bridge. However the construction work for 30 working months, had to wait for a nod from the NCA’s rehabilitation and resettlement (R&R) committee before a final approval from the NCA. In the meantime the central committee had asked Gujarat to keep the radial gates open till the environmental treatment of the catchment area of the Narmada reservoir area is complete. Gujarat had at that time submitted a plan for environmental treatment of the Narmada command area and started implementing the drainage treatment scheme in about 200 hectares area, likely to be affected because of the construction of canal network.