INDIA: DAM WATERS FLOW, BUT CRITICS SEE HEAVY LOSSES AHEAD.

by Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, May 20 (IPS/GIN) -- As water from the massive Narmada valley dam in central India trickled this week into the parched Kutch district close to the Pakistan border, people danced and sang, oblivious to what critics say are huge social, ecological and other costs incurred along the way.

The highest price is being paid by some 12,000 tribal and peasant families in the Narmada valley, whose lands and dwellings will be submerged when the giant Sardar Sarovar dam across the Narmada river reaches a height of 103 meters over the next 45 days.

"Everyone concerned knows that it is practically impossible to save these people or their fertile lands and large well-settled villages bustling with agrarian, commercial and social activities," said Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) or Save the Narmada Movement.

For two decades, NBA has opposed the construction of the Sardar Sarovar dam, but failed to stop it.

This is even if the World Commission on Dams (WCD) says that hundreds of big dams built in India over the past half century have boosted national food and industrial production, but at a cost borne by the poorest and most marginalised.

In 1993, the World Bank withdrew participation in Sardar Sarovar project because it was not satisfied that its benefits would be higher than its social, environmental and economic costs. The NBA later obtained a five-year court stay on construction, but this was lifted in October 2000.