India’s biggest dam project bogged down by protests

DELHI: A day after the inauguration of India’s biggest dam, activists vowed to keep fighting for the tens of thousands of people displaced by the project to be resettled and compensated.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday dedicated the controversial Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River to the people of India. The project will provide power and water to millions in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh states. Before the inauguration ceremony, protesters led by social activist Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) movement, stood in waist-deep Narmada water, demanding help for the 40 000 families uprooted by the project.

Modi claimed there was a conspiracy to stop the project, referring to the protesters who are agitating against the government’s decision to increase the height of the dam, which would inundate villages and farms and dislocate hundreds of thousands of people.

“No other project in the world has faced such hurdles as the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River. But we were determined to complete the project,” said Modi.

Hours before the inauguration, the water level of the Narmada went on rising and entered lowlying villages in Madhya Pradesh, inundating several bridges and homes.

On Saturday, Patkar, who has been spearheading the campaign to raise awareness about the environmental damage caused by the project and dislocation, started a protest in the water or “Jal Satyagraha” against the inauguration of the dam.

For three days, she sat in Chhota Barda village in the Narmada valley with 30 other people, to protest against the river’s rising waters. But when the water did not rise further on Saturday, Patkar suspended the protest for three days.

The NBA has alleged that the benefits of the project, “as being touted by the prime minister… were far-fetched” as they were a “bunch of lies and propaganda”.

Critics have hit out at the government for failing to provide proper rehabilitation or compensation to the 40 000 families who will be displaced. – Additional reporting