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A major recurring problem in India is the occurrence of droughts and floods. How will this dam and major dams such as these alleviate or aggravate this problem?
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Medha Patkar
Founder of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, a movement that opposes the construction of mega-dams on the Narmada River.
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S.K. Mohapatra
Managing Director of the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd, the state corporation charged with building the Sardar Sarovar dam.
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In spite of India having built over 3,600 large dams to date, the drought problem is not only unsolved, but has also worsened over the years. Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) has already begun causing flood in the downstream region. If the height of the dam is raised, it will be much more. In any case, there is no specific guarantee of flood control as a benefit of the dam. As regards drought, it happens to be there even in the villages on the bank of the Narmada, where there has been no effort to harness the river water, so clean and accessible, to fulfill the basic, minimum requirement for either irrigation or drinking water supply.
The drought-affected and -prone areas are not in any way going to be benefited by SSP. Only 2 percent of Gujarat's share will reach Kutch, the district occupying 24 percent of Gujarat's land, as per the plans. Whether or not all of Kutch will get even drinking water will depend on the actual magnitude of water reaching Kutch. This is likely to be greatly affected due to various political, economic, and social pressures and pulls on the water allocation, which will come from the big farmers, sugar factory owners, industries, and the urban rich, all of whom await optimum water supply, beyond what is allocated to them.
Thus, there is no claim taken by the authorities that they would provide irrigation in these most drought-affected areas during drought years, even if the dam is completed. The canal supply from the dam is to be closed down between April and June -- the very months when farmers need it.
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Droughts and floods occur due to the erratic nature of monsoons and the fact that most rivers in India, including Narmada, are rain-fed. Thus, while 90 percent of the water flows down the river during the two months of the monsoon, only 10 per cent is left to trickle down during the rest of the year. Areas away from the river, which do not receive good rainfall, go through drought conditions. In Gujarat, a large part of the state receives scanty rainfall and the monsoon totally fails in some years. Such bad years come on an average in three-year cycles. A dam like Sardar Sarovar can help ameliorate the situation by:
1. Storing the water during the monsoon and releasing part of it to the river downstream in a regulated manner so that flood conditions get moderated. (The power thus generated is a bonus.)
2. Releasing the other part of the stored water through a wide network of canal systems (total canal length: 66,000 km [41,012 miles]) taking the water to places as far as 700 km [435 miles] away.
Thus, the water, which would have flown into the sea during the monsoon, would be stored to irrigate 4.9 million acres of land and supply drinking water to a population of 40 million in Gujarat. One of the worst effects of drought, drinking water scarcity, would become a thing of the past in Gujarat once the dam is completed.
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The views expressed in this debate are solely those of the participants.
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