Don’t raise Narmada dam height: panel

A committee of environmental experts set up by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests has concluded that there were major shortfalls in complying with the prescribed environmental conditionalities and requirements with respect to the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP). It has advised the Ministry not to permit further raising of the Narmada dam from the present height of 122 metres, even by means of construction of piers and bridges, unless there was compliance with the conditions by the States concerned. The report debunks the claims of the governments of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra related to full or substantial compliance with respect to various aspects. These include catchment area treatment, compensatory afforestation, downstream impacts, command area development, archaeology, health impacts, and seismicity.The officially appointed committee, chaired by Devendra Pandey, Director, Forest Survey of India, to review the studies, planning and implementation of environmental safeguards for the Sardar Sarovar and Indira Sagar projects, submitted its interim report to the Ministry in February. A copy was obtained by the Narmada Bachao Andolan under the Right to Information Act. The panel also rejected the Narmada Control Authority-appointed Committee on Back-Water Levels and its report, on the ground that it violated the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award. That award requires the Central Water Commission to finalise the levels and not the NCA or its committee.It observed that the NCA report had technical flaws including the presumption of a lower magnitude of floods at the Sardar Sarovar dam than what was relied upon to design and construct the dam. The Narmada Valley Development Authority (of Madhya Pradesh) and the NCA had claimed that their report would pave the way for raising the dam height. They based this claim on their observation that there was a lowering of backwater levels that would result in the exclusion of over 40 villages from the submergence area. Besides non-compliance with environmental conditions, the failure to properly rehabilitate and resettle oustees in the basin States of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat has prevented the dam height from being raised to its final intended level

The Hindu, 29th  April 2009