The Sardar Sarovar Dam

Presented By: Group-1

The Narmada Dam in India

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0209/feature1/ water pressure

Why do countries build Dams?
Its a means by which many of the developed
countries of the world build their economic strength

Improving the circumstances of a region - be it health,
crops, infrastructure or industries - leads to greater
productivity, more markets, sturdier populations,
more investment, and so on

However, there is a cost.


Social and Economic Implications of Dams

Relocation of
communities:
- impacts on health, & economic, social,
cultural well-being

Loss of community
control over water:
- transfer of control from local level to
central government or corporate control
Diseases:
- encouraged by dam projects (creating
habitat for parasites), e.g.
schistosomiasis, mosquitoes
Increasing cost of dams:
- problems encountered in building dams
(ex. sedimentation).
- cost of mitigating social, environmental
impacts.
- delays
- best sites already taken -- only more
remote, more difficult sites left.
http://www.idsnet.org/Resources/Dams/Development/impact-econ.html
Social and Economic Implications of Dams

Inflexibility of hydrodams as power source (need to predict
electricity demand far in future).

Increasing economic inequalities: disproportionate share of
project benefits usually go to wealthier sectors of society

Important contributor to national debt.
http://www.idsnet.org/Resources/Dams/Development/impact-econ.html
Narmada River in India
http://www.sardarsarovardam.org/default.htm

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

The Narmada River
www.sardarsarovardam.org/ river_basin.htm
The Narmada river

It is the largest westward flowing river in India.
Home to over a million people

www.irn.org/revival/ decom/orgs/NBA.html
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.
http://www.narmada.org/images/satyagraha2001/ValleyLife.html
The Narmada River & its people
The river is used for:
Irrigate land for
farmers
Drinking water
Wash clothes
Cook
Spiritual benefits
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0209/feature1/
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

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 yr.for municipal and industrial
purposes
Provide a drainage system to carry away floodwaters
It will also take the land of 320,000 people
The Narmada Dam Project
http://www.narmada.org/maps/nvdp.jpg
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 (Indias leading
textile companies)
It will displace 180,000 more than projected and
affect 700,000 livelihoods
Indias 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.jpg
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, the Save the Narmada Movement (NBA). 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.
Medha Patkar
http://www.narmada.org/domkhedi.submergence.pictures.html
Opponents
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
much respect in 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 of money in poverty .
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 building the Sardar
Sarovar despite global protests
Proponents
Mr Vyas, Gujarat's Minister for Narmada Irrigation.

We have shown that if anybody else in the world can do it, we can do it
better
"I 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. We can't wish them away."

Mr. Vyas in Drowned Out film.
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 Brody, a
British anthropologist and
Donald Gamble, a Canadian
environmental engineer.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/dammed/photo.html

Independent Review findings:

No environmental impact report
No assessment on the effects of people living down stream despite a previous
report by the bank regarding increased salinity that would destroy fishing grounds,
increase in silt and the project would only be able to irrigate 5% of what was
initially stated.
People have died because of malaria. A previous report from the bank said the
project was taking malaria to the doorsteps of the villagers. But the report stated
the measures promised to prevent this were not yet due.
Inadequate resettlement plans, some villages havent even received a
resettlement plan and their villages have already been destroyed.

The politicians used drought-stricken populations to justify their big dams, despite
knowing that the projects can never deliver
Hugh Brody, from independent review team for the World Bank
Environmental Impacts
Threat to aquatic habitat barriers for fish passage, water
quality is affected because of change in land use can also
affect aquatic life
Water logging excess water in the soil and can render the
soil useless. This could affect 40% of the area to be irrigated.
Salinisation when irrigation water has more saline content
and adds more salt to the system. This happens because the
land to be irrigated is an arid area and not used to so much
water. This impacts the flora and fauna and makes the water
not suitable for drinking.
Health Impacts
Outbreak of diseases the concern of an increase in malaria
because of the increased reservoirs and water logged lands,
which are prime locations for mosquitoes to breed.
Authorities have suggested pesticides but there is concern for
humans ingesting the pesticide.
Another disease on the rise is TB because of the increasing
number of people being moved out of their villages because
of dams.
The shanty towns they move to have no running water and no
plumbing.
Social Impacts

http://www.narmada.org/images/haripics/harikrishna.pictures1.html
There was no social impacts
assessment before the dam
project started. The World
Bank tried to do an assessment
after the dam project started
but found that there was a
severe shortage in baseline
data.
One of the main problems that
came up was the lack of
communication between the
state and the people who were
to be affected by the project.
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

Save the Narmada Movement

Christmas Day 1990 Long March 3,000 people walked, 100km, which
took a week to the dam site, once they got there Medha Patka 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
http://www.narmada.org/images/haripics/harikrishna.pictures1.html
Where is the $ coming from?

The Indian government stated The government felt the bank
was encroaching on the sovereignty of India. We needed to
put our foot down.

Once the world Bank withdrew, the country of India financed the
rest of the Dam themselves.

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.

Resettlement planwhat 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.
In order to get water etc., they must buy
them but they cant buy them if they
cant farm and they cant farm
because they dont have these things
Old house
New house
http://www.sardarsarovardam.org/default.htm

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 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
Old school
New school
http://www.sardarsarovardam.org/default.htm

So where do the people go?
http://images.google.com/images?q=housing+in+India&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=40&sa=N
http://www.narmada.org/images/satyagraha2003/sat6.jpg


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
They protest

What about the people with no
water?
One of these villages in the desert
region where millions of people are
affected by water shortages is Gujarat.
It is one of the villages bring used by
the government to justify the
Narmada dam. Twenty years ago they
relied on their wells, but the wells are
now dry. Why?
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.
Currently, the town of Gujarat, is
dependant on emergency water
supplies from the government
A picture used on the dam builders website
http://www.sardarsarovardam.org/default.htm

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. Popular
playgrounds for urban, educated Indians, water
parks are booming in India, drought or no. The
park's water luxury stands in sharp contrast to
conditions in Gujarat.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/dammed/photo2.html

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.
Utilizing Resources
http://www.sardarsarovardam.org/default.htm

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.
http://www.sardarsarovardam.org/default.htm
How can I learn more


www.narmada.org
www.sardarsarovardam.org
www.dams.org

References/Bibliography
Pictures
http://www.narmada.org/images/haripics/harikrishna.pictures1.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/dammed/photo.html
http://www.narmada.org/domkhedi.submergence.pictures.html
http://www.irn.org/revival/decom/orgs/NBA.html