Great river, bottled up

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was defiant: "You stop me aid, I will stop paying tax," he thundered recently while presiding over an unplanned diversion of Narmada waters to Baroda Dairy. Plus, there were rumours of the ‘magic mantra' of marketing a ‘Narmada brand' of bottled water. In the midst of this populist chest-thumping, arrived the deadly story of the Narmada Main Canal getting breached.

On June 11, 2008, six villages (namely Sujatpura, Todmalpura, Bavjipura, Narsinhpur, Nani Kadi, Balasan, Kaswa and Shedadi) in Kadi tehsil of Mehsana district were flooded following a 30 metre long breach in the Narmada Main Canal forcing around 2,100 families to shift to safer places and submerging about 2,000 acres of farmland. The water that gushed from the breached canal caused 7-15 feet of water-logging in the affected areas. The administration quickly promised Rs 40,000 cash doles and Rs 610,000 as compensation for houses damaged in Sujatpura, while the survey of fields to assess damages was initiated.

While the state government quickly announced a unilateral technical committee of technocrats to probe the entire 458 km stretch of the main canal, the fact is that breaches such as the recent one has been also witnessed in the past. However, the government has failed to ensure that the canal network doesn't impede the natural drainage pattern. It has also failed to integrate the command area's ecological concerns.

On August 3, 2004 there were reports that seven villages in Pavi Jetpur and Sankheda talukas of Vadodara have been inundated as the flooded Narmada Main Canal had been breached at two locations near Bodeli, rendering hundreds homeless. The response of the project authorities was casual, as exemplified by KN Rawal, a superintending engineer. He told the , "Since the level of the Narmada canal was at a lower level than Heran river and its Borda tributary, the excess water from the river flowed into the canal, thus helping in receding the water level in the river and its tributary."

He didn't give a thought to a probable scenario: what if the Narmada Main Canal had also been carrying water to its optimum capacity -- 40,000 cusecs?

Within a week, on the afternoon of August 11, 2004, another news flashed -- from PTI Bhasha. Another breach was reported in the Narmada canal near Viramgam taluka in Ahmedabad district forcing the administration to evacuate people from low-lying areas.

In 2005, when it rained heavily in the command area, we witnessed rehabilitation sites of the Sardar Sarovar mega-dam getting waterlogged. The Baroli site in Naswadi taluka in Baroda district was under water because the river could not flow under the canal. Four of the five siphons provided for underground inlets were blocked and hence the river turned to its left, cut through a large chunk of land, submerged houses, fields, cattle, bullock carts, everything.

On September 17, 2005, even as Narendra Modi boasted of having interlinked Narmada and Saraswati river, the canal was de-linked between Nani Kadi and Narsinghpur in Mehsana district -- exactly the same location as the recent canal breach near the Y shaped junction from where the canal goes towards Kutch. Lakhs of gallons of water flooded nearby fields causing damage to crops.

Clearly, no lessons were learnt from all these incidents of serious canal breaches. While the thinking on appointing a new ‘authority' for the Narmada Command Area had started in September 2003, field surveys were initiated in November 2003 and there was no master plan covering all the activities to develop the command area, as revealed in the CAG audit report for Gujarat (commercial) for the year ending March 31, 2007. Indeed, while the first phase of the Narmada command (till Mahi) was slated to be completed in six years, as of today there has been glaring shortfalls in mitigating adverse command area ecological impacts.

The question is, after mass displacement of tens of thousands, false promises, lies and betrayals, and direct attacks on peaceful people's movements, how long will the history of the Narmada dam remain the history of non-compliance and utter inefficiency? And why are the people still paying the price for the cold-blooded obstinacy of the establishment?