4. The Narmada River
Narmada means „ever-delightful‟, one of the holiest rivers in the
country of India
“they say that even the site of the river will cleanse all of your
sins”
6. The Narmada river – The people
• It is home to over a million
people, mainly tribal
people, Adivasi (original
dwellers) whose grandparents
lived on and farmed the land.
• Local farmers, wage
laborers, craftspeople and
fishermen live along the river
and rely on it for their
livelihood.
7. Why the Narmada Dam?
Currently in India:
• 1/5 of pop. (200 million people) are without safe
drinking water
• 2/3 of pop. (600 million people) lack basic sanitation
• 2/5 of pop. (350 million people) live below the poverty
line
• With rain being sporadic because of rainy seasons and
variations between different parts of the country, the
idea of storing river water in reservoirs behind dams
seemed to be a great solution
8. The Narmada Dam Project
• The first of the dams to be built is the Sardar Sarovar. It is
considered to be one of the most important dams in the
project and the biggest water development project in India
• According to the government, the Sardar Sarovar Dam will
do the following:
• Provide safe drinking water to 30 million people
• Irrigate 4.8 million hectares of land
• Produce 550 megawatts of power
• Provide 1,300 cubic-meters of water per year for
municipal and industrial purposes
• Provide a drainage system to carry away floodwaters
• It will also take the land of 320,000 people
10. The Sardar Sarovar Dam
• Initial Budget(1986-87) Rs 6,400 cr
• Investors are the World Bank until 1993 (when they withdrew), Gov.
of Gujarat (state where the Sardar Sarovar dam is located) and
S.Kumars (India‟s leading textile companies)
• Expenditure so far Rs 14,000 cr
• Projected Total cost Rs 24,000 cr
• Cost of main canal Rs 4,000 cr
• Villages submerged 14
• Families displaced 4,600
• Irrigation for 1.91 million hectares
• Drinking water for 8,200 villages, 135 towns
11. Other facts……
• It will displace 180,000 people more than projected and affect
700,000 livelihoods
• 3,200 dams to be built along 1,200km Narmada river.
• Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan were likely to
benefit from this project.
• Opponents says the DAM will displace 200,000 people and
damage ecology.
• It is estimated that the project would be fully complete by 2025.
12. Proponents
• Indian Government supports the building of dams.
• The World Bank supported the Sardar Sarovar Dam
Project and loaned India $450 million. They withdrew
from the project after an independent review confirmed
social and environmental impacts were increasing.
• Supreme court gave stay order & directed the states to
complete rehabilitation process.
• In 2000, Supreme court gave the final verdict of
completion of construction according to its original scale.
13. Opponents
• Dalits and Adivasi (indigenous people). In accordance to
their caste system they are often referred to as „untouchables‟.
Many of these people are uneducated and very few can read and
write.
• Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), Save the Narmada
Movement. The movement started in 1986 when the World
Bank lent India $450 million for the Sardar project. It was
started by a social worker named Medha Patkar. She is the
representative for the NBA movement.
15. Opponents
• Baba Amte; a social worker whose work with leprosy
has earned him much respect in the country among the
tribal people and government officials.
• Arundhati Roy; Booker Prize-winning author
supporter of the „Save the Narmada Movement‟; wrote a
book about the Dams in India called „The Greater
Common Good‟.
“Nobody builds Big Dams to provide drinking water to
rural people. Nobody can afford to.”
“There's a lot of money in poverty .” - Arundhati Roy
16. Their principal ground of
opposition
• Non fulfillment of basic environmental conditions
• Insufficient plans & studies
• Local inhabitants not being taken into confidence
• Insufficient compensation
17. Admirable POINTS TO THE
ENVIRONMENTAL
1. Overwhelmed low
rainfall, unreliable
monsoon, long dry
season
2. Difficulties also
overcame by
irrigation
18. 3. Create new ecosystems
e.g. Reservoirs can be build and used economically
Large water
bodies shall be
created as a
result of various
dams being
constructed on
the river
Narmada & its
tributaries.
• The reservoirs would, therefore, offer tremendous opportunities for
fisheries development which would ultimately benefit the fishermen
socially and economically in the respective areas.
19. Spoilage TO THE
ENVIRONMENT
1. Flooded and
destroyed
good lands
and
vegetation
2. Drowning
trees
21. 4. Salinisation
Soils may become saline in desert areas i.e. No new farming
would be sustainable
Of the total area to be irrigated
by Sardar Sarovar, only 40% is
classified as "suitable" and
"very suitable" for irrigation.
The remaining 60%, had more
or less severe problems related
to high salt content in the soil
impacting the flora and fauna
and the groundwater making
the water not suitable for
drinking.
22. 5. Threat to aquatic habitat – Barriers for fish
passage, water quality is affected because of change in land
use. It can also affect aquatic life.
6. Water logging – Excess water in the soil can render the
soil useless. This could affect 40% of the area to be
irrigated.
23. „save the Narmada MOveMent‟
• Established in 1989
• Sept 1989 - 60,000 people rally against destructive
development
• Jan 1990 – 5,000 people marched on the Narmada
Valley Development authority offices forcing them to
close
• March 1990 – 10,000 protesters blocked the highway
from Bombay for two days
• May 1990 – 2,000 people staged a sit-in outside the
prime ministers house in Delhi
24. “save the Narmada MOveMent”
• Christmas Day 1990 – Long March – 3,000 people walked
100km, which took a week to the dam site and 6 others went on a
hunger strike demanding the government suspend work on the
dam and hold an independent review. It lasted 22 days until they
broke fast – this made Narmada an international issue.
• Jan 1991 – The World Bank commissions independent review
25. Why did the World Bank
withdraw the loan?
• It was a protest by the NBA
called 'satyagraha' that caught
the World Banks attention.
• They sent in an independent
review team headed by Hugh
Body, a British anthropologist
and Donald Gamble, a Canadian
environmental engineer.
• However, India has already
received $250 million from the
World Bank and is “legally
obligated towards the Bank to
carry out its obligations under
the loan agreement.”
26.
27. PROMISES OF Resettlement
• While the pictures of the new settlements
look like an improvement, they are
deceiving.
• The resettlement agency showed the same
town to tribal people who were considering
being relocated.
• For those that resign to move, will be taken Old school
to a completely different town with no
amenities promised, if there are any houses
available at all
• The other option is to take a cash payment
for what their land is worth, which
oftentimes is not enough to buy other
property and goes to food for survival New school
28. FAILURE OF Resettlement plan
• Not enough resettlement sites have been set up for the
amount of people already displaced.
• The sites that have been set up have no electricity, no
water, no farming, and no fruit or trees.
29. So where do the people go?
• They move to the outskirts of the
city where they try to get work as
laborers and live on less than $1 a
day
• They go back to their old town by the
river and hope that their houses have
not been destroyed by police
30. What about the people with no
water?
• Millions of people are affected by water
shortages in Gujarat.
• Twenty years ago people relied on wells,
but the wells are now dry.
• Agribusiness and industry are drilling
ever deeper tube wells to find water, which
is causing the water level to decrease by
about 4ft every year.
A PICTURE USED ON THE DAM
BUILDERS WEBSITE
• Currently, the town of Gujarat, is
dependant on emergency water supplies
from the government
31. But…..
….if the water is so
scarce why is there a
water park in Gujarat
where people are
dying of thirst?
A WATER THEME PARK'S
DISCOTHEQUE.
32. Utilizing Resources
The village of Raj
Samadhiyala is also in the
drought region and yet it
is self-sufficient in water
because they are using
simple water saving and
collecting techniques to
recharge the groundwater
level and their wells.
33. Current status of the Dam
• The Spillway of Sardar Sarovar
Dam is raised upto its crest level
of 121.92 m
• Construction of Irrigation Bye
Pass Tunnel [IBPT] is almost
completed.
• Preconstruction activities of
Garudeshwar weir has been taken
up.
• Protests are a regular occurrence
and they will continue to do so
until the dam is stopped.
34. Our idea as a manager
(recommendation)
• To form a core committee & sub committees for direct
dialogue between local villagers and govt. agencies
• To implement a comprehensive compensation scheme
• To set into motion a full scale PR campaign:
– To garner support at national & international level
– To propagate the achievements till date
– To make local villagers fully aware of their contribution in
nation‟s development
35. How can we learn more
www.narmada.org
www.spannerfilms.com
www.dams.org
www.irn.org
36. References/Bibliography
Articles, Books, Case Studies
• Caufield, Catherine (1996) Masters of illusion: The world Bank &
Poverty of Nations. New York, Henry Holt.
• Hails, Dr. Chris (2004).UNEP Workshop on Financing Dams and
Sustainable Development, WWF International London, 21-22 April 2004
• Jain, Sonu (2004). Can Gujarat quench the great thirst? The Indian
Express. March 14
• Pottinger, Lori (2001) Dammed if you do. The Ecologist. Feb
• Rangachari, R., Sengupta, N., Iyer, R.R., Banerji, P., and Singh, S.
(2000). Large Dams: India‟s Experience, a WCD case study
prepared a an input to the World Commission on Dams, Capetown,
www.dams.org
