Gandhinagar: Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and Deputy Chief Minister Nitinbhai Patel today thanked the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) for giving the permission to close the sluice gates to fill the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) dam with Narmada waters to its full height up to 138.68 metres from 121.92 metres where the work had stuck.

No sooner than they learnt about the NCA permission at its meeting in New Delhi, both rushed to the site of the dam on the Narmada river at Kevadia near the Gujarat-Madhya Pradesh border and ordered that the work on the sluice gates be started immediately so that the rainwater coming from upstream during monsoon could be stored behind the dam.

Reacting to the development, Mr. Rupani and Mr. Patel described it as a historic day, opening up a very bright future, green revolution and all round development of Gujarat. The drought which used to be hit by the state every third year, supplying water to one-third of total 18,000 villages, will be a thing of the past now. Gujarat’s mostly rain-fed agriculture will also be now a canal-based irrigation.

The dam is being constructed by Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (SSNL), a wholly-owned Government of Gujarat Undertaking. It will soon reach its maximum height to store 4.73maf (million acre-foot) as against 1.27maf at present. This 348maf additional storage capacity amounts to 3.75 times the present capacity. The benefits could be imagined.

They gave a call for 15 days’ celebration in cooperation with the people of the state.

Giving details of benefits to accrue, they said, it will entail power generation to its full capacity of 1450 MW from the riverbed and canal-head power stations – hopefully by the end of the next monsoon. At present the riverbed power stations generated electricity from the half-completed height of the dam at 121.92 metres.

Similarly, it will also entail irrigation from the Narmada waters to full capacity of 6-lakh hectare. Gujarat occupying six per cent of India’s geographical area and five percent of population had access to 2.28 per cent of the nation’s total surface water resources.

Recalling the development since Sardar Patel had visualized the potential of building a dam (later called SSP dam) on the Narmada between the gorges during India’s Interim Government as early as 1946. In Independent India, the Congress government kept the issue in cold storage till April 5, 1961 when the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone of the dam. It was only in 1987 that contract was given to construct the dam the dam by 1996, but it remained embroiled in one controversy or the other between 1996 and 2000.

Meanwhile, Gujarat Government built Asia’s longest 458-km Narmada Main Canal and 6,000 km of Branch Canals up to Rajasthan by 2008, a stupendous lift irrigation project to lift water by five pumping stations by 71 metres by 2009

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi became Gujarat’s Chief Minister in 2001, he gave the slogan of Jalshakti, Janshakti, Gyanshakti, Rakshashakti and Urjashakti to take up the project with renewed vigour.

In cooperation with partner states, the height of the dam was raised to 95 metres by July 2002, 100 metres by July 2003, and 110.64 metres by June 2004.

Work began at the dam on the recommendation of environmental and rehabilitation sub-committees, after NCA gave permission to raise the height 121.92 metres to March 8, 2006. But the work stayed after the Maharashtra Chief Minister and two Union Ministers belonging to the Congress party raised objection at the NCA’s Review Committee meeting on April 15, 2006. In a rare case, Chief Minister Modi sat on fast in protest against the Review Committee blockade the very next day on April 16, 2006. The UPA Government and Supreme Court ultimately gave signal to go ahead in December 2006 to take the height to 121.92 metres.

Within 17 days of the Bharatiya Janata Party Government led by Mr. Narendra Modi coming to power after the Lok Sabha election in 2014, the files were dug out from the cold storage after 90 months of work stoppage.

The completion of the dam up to the current level 121.92 metres helped the SSP divert the surplus Narmada waters flowing down the river, from the Arabian Sea towards the drought-prone areas of Gujarat.

The framework, comprising 29 piers up to a height of 146 metres, about eight months back to operate 23 gates of 60 feet x 55 feet, seven gates of 60 feet x 60 feet, was readied in three years. The super structure consumed about 1.10-lakh cubic metres of concrete. Each gate weight about 450 tonnes, totaling 450 tonnes.

There were several other arduous aspects of the project like rehabilitating 11,068 oustees, providing alternative 21,959 hectare agricultural land, 500 sq metres residential plots.

The Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister were accompanied by Chief Secretary J.N. Singh and Chief Minister’s Chief Principal Secretary K. Kailashnathan.