Narmada Bachao Andolan

DAMS AND DISPLACEMENT
THE NARMADA
BACHAO ANDOLAN
1
JMPCOC/EVS-II/DS/15-16

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”
JMPCOC/EVS-II/DS/15-16 2
 Conceived in the mid‐1960s
under Nehru
 Building postponed due to
disagreement between three
states impacted by project:
 Madhya Pradesh
 Gujarat
 Maharashtra
 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 labourers, crafts people and

fishermen live along the river and rely on it for their
livelihood.
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 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
 •
 Initial Budget(1986-87) Rs 6,400 cr
 Investors are the World Bank until 1993 (when they withdrew), Govt.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

 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.
 •
 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.

 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.
 Baba Amte ; a social worker whose work with leprosy has earned him much respect in
the country among thetribal people and government officials.
 Arundhati Roy ; Booker Prize-winning author supporter of the „Save the Narmada
Movement‟
 •
 Non fulfillment of basic environmental

conditions
 Insufficient plans & studies
 Local inhabitants not being taken into
confidence
 Insufficient compensation
 Has increased at various points during the period b/w
1970s through now
 Consists of a complex project to build 3000 dams,
including 3 major dams, along with a network of canals
 Is justified on the grounds of eliminating water scarcity in
Gujarat and Maharashtra
 Madhya Pradesh most likely to face costs of submergence
 In theory, all three states will benefit from “clean” hydro‐
electric project
 The NBA or Narmada
Bachao Andolan (Save the
Narmada Movement) has
become the primary
organization resisting the
Dam
 Strategies include legal
challenges, demonstration,
civil‐disobedience and
other non‐violent tactics
 Prominent help from well‐
Medha Patekar, NBA activist known figures such as
Arunadhiti Roy
 Will displace 3 million peasants and adivasis whose villages
and farms will be submerged
 Will not fix water scarcity in Gujarat—only a small portion
of drought‐impacted lands would benefit
 No just compensation has been offered to people already
displaced by project, those who will be displaced as project
continues will face similar issues
 Cultural impact of re‐settlement is a form of supression of
adivasi cultural practices
 Government disputes these figures
 Govt. relies of figures gathered in 1979 that showed 6,147
families would be displaced
 By 2001 this number had grown to 41,000 families (roughly
205,000 people)
 Neither set of figures includes people who would be
displaced by canals (157,000) or whose livelihoods would be
permanently altered by 3000 dams—fishermen, peasants,
tribals who earn a living from forest produce, etc
 No attempt to keep numbers current as legal challenges
drag on
 India has freshwater reserves—but two caveats important
to remember
 Only Northern river systems are perennial, rest are rain‐
fed
 These data include groundwater that is disappearing in
agricultural areas
 32.5% of renewable freshwater is being used annually, this
percentage continues to grow year by year
 Agricultural sector is the primary user—92%
 Domestic usage is only 5%, while Industry uses 3% of water
sources
 By the 1990s the NBA won a series of important victories
 The World Bank which had funded $450 million for the SS
project agreed to investigate the NBA and Govt. claims
 In 1992 the Morse report commissioned by the WB
indicted the Indian Govt. for a poorly conceived re‐
settlement strategy and concluded that the NBA claims
about the permanent negative impact of resettlement were
valid
 The World bank pulled out of the project and in 1995 work
on the major dam was suspended
 The Indian Government found other sources of
funding and re‐started the project
 The height of the main reservoir was now raised by 80‐
85 m.
 NBA challenged the govt. again leading to a court
battle in the Supreme Court
 2001 judgment was a stunning blow to NBA
 The recent decision of the Supreme Court to allow
the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam, even

as thousands of families are yet to be rehabilitated
and 35000 more face displacement. The Supreme
Court and Government of India have turned a
blind eye to this grave injustice

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DAMS AND DISPLACEMENT

Narmada means „ever delightful one of the holiest

 Local farmers, wage labourers, crafts people and

 2/3 of pop. (600 million people) lack basic sanitation

 Initial Budget(1986-87) Rs 6,400 cr

 Expenditure so far Rs 14,000 cr

 Projected Total cost Rs 24,000 cr Cost of main canal Rs 4,000 cr

 Families displaced 4,600

 Irrigation for 1.91 million hectares

 Drinking water for 8,200 villages, 135 towns

 It is estimated that the project would be fully complete by 2025.

 Indian Government supports the building of dams.

 In 2000, Supreme court gave the final verdict of completion of construction

 Non fulfillment of basic environmental

the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam, even

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