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dam-l FYI: YKAlagh article on SSP in Hindustan times of 19.5.99
Though the following article in the Hindustan times of 19.5.99 does not
mention Arundhati Roy's cover stories in OUTLOOK and FRONTLINE, I
suspect it is written to reply to that. - Himanshu Thakker
-------------------------
The Hindustan Times, May 19, 1999.
Lessons from Sardar Sarovar
(Yoginder K. Alagh)
Now that the Supreme Court has allowed the construction of the Sardar
Sarovar dam to proceed, the country must reflect on the lessons of the
experience from the project.
One of the major reasons of delay in the construction of infrastructure
in India is the constraints on account of relocation and the pressures
placed by a democratic polity to modify project designs. In some cases,
like the Tehri project, the original design was faulty and the work of
subsequent groups like the Hanumantha Rao committee showed the
substantial details that had to be finalised after the project was
formulated. Sardar Sarovar was an interesting case where a
well-drawn-out project became the focus of a largely internationally
sponsored critique with a local counterpart to it which succeeded in
delaying it in a costly manner.
The motivation of many of these critiques was to expose the moribund
nature of their own society so the Adivasi became the “native North
American (either Red Indian or Eskimo)”, Nehru and freedom fighters
became their oppressors in the manner of the conservative US mid-western
political elite and Narmada became a part of the fantasy of Green
politics in the rich world. Some real issues were raised but there were
a number of red herrings. Thus globally, even during the last two or
three years, there are many countries where the impression has been
created that the project is at an initial phase and will never be
implemented.
The attack on the project was on the grounds that there would be
waterlogging, that the irrigation efficiencies in it will not be
achieved, that no work has been done on environment mitigation and that
its investment cost will never yield an adequate return. The counter
factuals were described and were available from the beginning of this
critique. But apart from a few conscientious journalists like Kuldip
Nayar, nobody was willing to verify the facts.
International, largely urban-based critiques of the project based on no
facts whatsoever were thrown around. The groundwater situation in the
Mahi Narmada Doab was monitored from the mid-eighties at over a hundred
piezzometers. Fortunately, readings were available and were widely
distributed. The canals were so designed that the farmer would be forced
to draw groundwater because the design of the system provided for
limited delivery of canal water.
If canal water was limited and groundwater would be pumped out, there
would not be any waterlogging. If the farmer did not pump out the
groundwater, however, its level was being monitored and the system was
designed in a manner so that if the water level reached around five
metres it would be pumped out and put back in the canal systems, which
was designed to take this load.
It was pointed out that the cost of the project was more than Rs 50,000
a hectare. These calculations were wrong because they included the cost
of the electricity generation and loaded it on the irrigation part of
the project. But even if this was taken into account the cost was high.
But it was shown that the Gujarat farmer whenever he was given four
irrigations plus was achieving yields which would make the economic rate
of returns to the project above 18 per cent. The critics continued to
quote “average” low yields. The debate went along unreal lines.
The Sardar Sarovar rehabilitation plan was a model which even the draft
national rehabilitation policy and the Hanumantha Rao committee report
on Tehri has not been able to achieve. Thus, land for land is not an
objective in the national rehabilitation policy and in the revised Tehri
rehabilitation programme. A separate professional group was set up to
implement the rehabilitation plan. It is silly to say that if some
rehabilitated persons have gone back to their land, that is a failure.
In fact, revenue authorities generally allow farmers to till the land
until the actual flooding takes place.
The rehabilitation surveys have highlighted some problems. For example,
even when the standards of living improves as compared to the benchmark
in the original site, there are annual fluctuations. It takes time for
communities to adjust to new environments. In Gujarat, it was possible
to get land for relocating almost 20,000 persons since with fast
non-agricultural growth, the work force dependent on agriculture had
gone down from 70 per cent to less than 60 per cent. But this may not be
possible elsewhere. Experts have been trying to develop the knowledge
and skills to handle the problem of populations which are relocated both
on account of the general development processes and on account of
projects. NGOs are trying to implement these ideas. It is these which
have to become a major area of concern rather than faulty debates based
on unreal promises.