According to the government, the Sardar Sarovar Dam will do the following: Provide safe drinking water to 30 million people Irrigate 4. million hectares of land Produce 550 megawatts of power Provide 1, 300 cubic-meters of water per yr. or municipal and industrial purposes Provide a drainage system to carry away floodwaters It will also take the land of 320, 000 people http://www. narmada. org/maps/nvdp. ]pg The Sardar Sarovar Dam The cost of the project was estimated at $200 million, actual cost is $450 million 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) It will displace 180, 000 more than projected and affect 700, 000 livelihoods India’s History with Dams According to the World Commission on dams: Over the last 50 years, India has built more than 1500 large dams. 70% of the irrigation projects are still incomplete 16 million Indian people have been forced from their homes because of these dams. % of these people were not ‘rehabilitated’ Picture of a village, now an island http://www. narmada. org/images/satyagraha2003/sat7.
J Opponents Dalits and Adivasi (indigenous people). In accordance to their caste system they are ‘untouchables’. Many of these people are uneducated and very few can read and write. Narmada Bachao Andolan, the Save the Narmada Movement (NBA). The movement started in 1986 when the World Bank ent 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. Medha Patkar http://www. narmada. org/domkhedi. submergence. pictures. tml 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’. Baba Amte; a social worker whose work with leprosy has earned him muchrespectin the country among the tribal people and government officials. ” Nobody builds Big Dams to provide drinking water to rural people. Nobody can afford to. ” There’s a lot ofmoneyinpoverty. ” Arundhati Roy 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. The Supreme Court of India has ruled on the Sardar Sarovar Dam. In 1995 they suspended work on the dam because the height exceeded the amount originally planned, 75m. In 1999 they ordered work to continue up to the height of 85m. Then in Oct 18, 2000 they ruled in favor of uilding the Sardar Sarovar despite global Mr Vyas, Gujarat’s Minister for Narmada Irrigation. ” l think this is a civil engineering marvel. ” If you have to sacrifice a little bit of your own for the good of society, do it gladly, willingly, smilingly” ” We have given them the best and put them in the bracket which belongs to the best people.
