Central government not allowing to raise dam height: Gujarat

GANDHINAGAR - The Congress-led central government is denying Gujarat 580 crore (5.8 billion) cubic metres of water annually by not giving permission to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, the state’s Minister for Water Resources Nitin Patel said Wednesday.

“The Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river in central Gujarat currently has a height of 121.92 metres, which allows storage of barely 157 crore cubic metres of water annually. The height of the dam needs to be raised to 138.68 metres to store a total of 580 crore cubic metres of water to irrigate farm lands across Gujarat,” he said.

“The central government fears extra submergence upstream of Narmada river. This is completely wrong as there would be no extra submergence. The Centre had unnecessarily delayed the raising of the dam’s height. The Gujarat government had already spent Rs.28,000 crore (Rs.280 billion) in the Sardar Sarovar project with another Rs.10,000 crore to be spent for its completion during the next few years,” the minister said.

He said the state government had completed the Hydro Power House at the Sardar Sarovar Dam, but it is not being fully utilised as the dam’s height needs to be raised to generate more power.

The entire Sardar Sarovar project is solely funded by the Gujarat government as the central government is yet to accord it the status of a ‘National Project’ as it did in the case of 14 irrigational projects in other states in the past decade, Patel claimed.

The Sardar Sarovar is an inter-state multi-purpose project, which will also benefit Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

The project has run into controversies for over a decade with the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) first opposing its construction and later increasing the dam height, as it led to the displacement of many thousand people. The affected families have often alleged inadequate compensation and rehabilitation.