Dam delay: Sardar Sarovar project 5 years off schedule
With the multicrore Sardar Sarovar dam project already running behind schedule,Gujarat Water Resources Minister Nitin Patel informed the state Assembly on Tuesday that the project was now expected to be completed by 2014.
With the multicrore Sardar Sarovar dam project already running behind schedule,Gujarat Water Resources Minister Nitin Patel informed the state Assembly on Tuesday that the project was now expected to be completed by 2014.
It may be noted that work on the dam was scheduled for completion by 2009 and the civil work on about 74,000 kms of the canal network crisscrossing Gujarat was scheduled to be over by 2010. At present,the dam height stands at 121.92 meters (still 17 meters below the final height),while only about 25 per cent of the work on the canal network has been completed.
“The government has already spent about Rs 28,000 crore on the dam project,and we still need Rs 10,000 crore more to complete the entire project by 2014”,Patel told the House while replying to the debate on the budgetary demands of the Narmada,Water Resources and Supply departments.
He said Gujarat will witness an “agriculture revolution” with manifold increase in the income of the farmers once the project is fully executed. As of now,work on the 1,534 km-long distributaries and 14,990 km-long sub-canals has been completed,he said.
“This irrigation facility will cover 18.45 lakh hectares of farmland under the project,and help ryots raise their income from the present Rs 600 crore to Rs 1,800 crore in the next five years,and to Rs 2,800 crore in the next 15 years,” he added.
The minister sought to criticize the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre for not conceding Gujarat’s plea for declaring the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) a project of “national importance”,despite repeated oral as well as written representations by the State Government to the Centre. If the UPA regime accepts this plea,Gujarat will be eligible for funds from the Centre for the project,he said.
Patel informed the House that though the civil work of the dam was over,the radial gates were yet to be installed and peers constructed so as to raise the dam height further upto 138.68 meters.
The government has urged the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) to remove all hurdles and grant permission to Gujarat to install the radial gates and construct peers at the dam.
The work on seven Narmada branch canals is in progress,and the work on six of these branches – Saurashtra,Goraiya,Rajpura,Bolera,Amrapura and Radhanpur — will be completed this year. Besides,the government proposes to set up three power stations one each at Indarva,Kilana and Madupara along the
Kutch branch canal,with an estimated cost of Rs 240 crore,Patel informed the House.
Meanwhile,sources in the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (SSNNL) said that an acute shortage of technical personnel has virtually crippled the work on laying the canal network across the State.
Of the total staff strength of 3,000 in the Nigam,only 1,900 engineers (both in junior and senior categories) are available at present.
The Nigam authorities have urged the government to recruit engineers to ensure speedy completion of the work on the huge canal network.
A senior SSNNL officer said another reason for the work coming to a standstill on the canal network is that the Nigam finds it increasingly difficult to acquire about 30,000 hectares of land from farmers to lay branch,sub-branch,minor and sub-minors canals across the state. “Every year,about 600 SSNNL engineers retire from services,and the government has made no efforts to fill up these vacancies for the last several years”,admits the official.
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