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DAM-L LS: IRN Condemns Court Go Ahead for Sardar Sarovar Dam (fwd)



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From owner-irn-narmada@netvista.net  Thu Oct 19 01:04:50 2000
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 21:36:10 -0700 (PDT)
Message-Id: <200010190436.e9J4aAX28734@DaVinci.NetVista.net>
subject: LS: IRN Condemns Court Go Ahead for Sardar Sarovar Dam
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International Rivers Network
Berkeley, California
www.irn.org

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: October 18, 2000
Contact: Patrick McCully (510) 543 3317

IRN Condemns Indian Supreme Court Go Ahead for Sardar Sarovar Dam

International Rivers Network strongly condemns today's majority 
ruling by the Indian Supreme Court allowing construction to resume on 
the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River. "The ruling is utterly 
illogical and an insult to democracy and justice," said Patrick 
McCully, Campaigns Director of International Rivers Network.

The Sardar Sarovar Project is one of the world's most controversial 
dam projects and would forcibly displace more people than any other 
infrastructure project in the world except for China's notorious 
Three Gorges Dam. "Sardar Sarovar symbolizes an outdated and 
internationally discredited approach to water management," Patrick 
McCully added.

The Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) filed their 
case against Sardar Sarovar  in 1994. The NBA presented the court 
with evidence showing that the project will not work as planned, that 
alternatives are available, that the necessary environmental studies 
have not been done, and that proper rehabilitation of the hundreds of 
thousands of people who would lose their livelihoods to the project 
is impossible. The NBA have for more than a decade led a mass 
campaign of non-violent resistance to the dam.

The court had stalled construction on the part-built dam wall for 
most of the past six years. But the final ruling allows the height of 
the dam to be raised by five meters immediately and then in further 
five-meter stages based on approval from government committees which 
have shown themselves to be controlled by pro-dam interests.

One of the three judges on the Supreme Court bench, Justice S.P. 
Bharucha, issued a dissenting opinion stating that construction 
should be stopped pending new environmental studies.

The court has given project authorities four weeks to draw up a plan 
for the resettlement and rehabilitation of the 200,000 people to be 
displaced by the Sardar Sarovar Reservoir. A resettlement plan for 
Sardar Sarovar was supposed to have been completed in 1981. "If the 
authorities can't produce a credible plan in nearly two decades, how 
can they write one in a month?", Patrick McCully asks.

Several hundred thousand other people will lose - or have already 
lost - their livelihoods to irrigation canals, housing for 
construction workers, the desiccation of the river downstream of the 
dam, and a wildlife reserve planned to compensate for the ecosystems 
to be flooded.

IRN is a California-based environment and human rights organization 
which supports the rights of communities facing the impacts of 
destructive water projects and advocates for sustainable and 
equitable water and energy management.

--##--

For more on the reaction to the Supreme Court judgement go to www.narmada.org

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Patrick McCully
Campaigns Director
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way
Berkeley, CA 94703, USA
Tel. +1 510 848 1155
Fax. +1 510 848 1008
www.irn.org

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