Keep watch over Narmada dam height issue, and politics involved in it, the latest development is this

Ahmedabad, 13 September 2012

If you recall, we had picked up and published a portion of speech of Gujarat’s Urban development minister Nitin Patel few weeks back(video of which is presented above) on DeshGujarat.

The minister had said(read full text here) that it was sad that water of overflowing Narmada dam was meeting sea. He had alleged that Gujarat Congress leaders had asked their leaders in centre not to permit increase of Narmada dam height before elections, because such decision would benefit Modi ahead of the polls.

Now see the latest development, perhaps supporting Gujarat minister’s apprehension.

Today’s Indian Express has published a report ‘panel defers decision on Modi demand to raise dam height’.

Following are the main points in this report and we are putting selected paragraphs in rearranged chronology here:

–As per the Gujarat government, the storage capacity of Narmada dam will increase three-fold if the height of Narmada dam raised to its full reservoir level. This would cover additional irrigation area of 6.6 lakh hectares and increase power generation by about 40%.

–Raising the height of the dam requires a clearance from the Narmada Control Authority(NCA). NCA can give clearance only after a go-ahead from two sub-groups. While one sub-group on environment has given the green signal in 2012, the other sub-group on resettlement and rehabilitation(R&R) has not given its nod.

–Chief Minister Narendra Modi recently had written a letter to Agriculture minister Sharad Paward seeking early approval from the R&R sub-group, so that height of the dam can be raised. Sharad Pawar had visited Gujarat to review drought situation. The state government had sought go-ahead for dam height increase at that time too. The CM in his communication to Pawar pointed out that R&R works in all the three states – Guj, MP, Maha have been substantially completed as required under the provisions of the Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal Award and the Supreme Court order.

–The Resettlement and Rehabilitation sub-group of the Narmada Control Authority – chaired by Social Justice and Empowerment Secretary that reviews and monitors the implementation of resettlement and rehabilitation policies and programmes on Wednesday(yesterday) met and discussed Gujarat’s demand to raise the dam height but no decision was taken because of certain non-completion of work in Maharashtra. Now Maharashtra has been asked to submit a report on compliance after which the panel will meet again.

So it is the Congress-ruled Maharashtra government that would prepare and submit a report to the centre and any decision on increasing height of Narmada dam will arrive then after. There’s of-course no time limit involved in this.