Modi146;s asmita

Despite the high-voltage campaign of the Narmada Bachao Andolan earlier this year, the Supreme Court refused to stop construction work on the Sardar Sarovar Project, given its immense infrastructural importance, and was entirely right in doing so. The Gujarat government had at that juncture argued the precise same point before the apex court. Given this background, it is extremely disappointing to learn that the benefits of this project 8212; even at the present height of the dam at 92 metres 8212; are yet to reach its intended beneficiaries; worse, that its potential is unlikely to be realised even in the next few years, as this newspaper has reported.

The onus of this inertia rests firmly with the state8217;s chief minister, Narendra Modi, who has personally campaigned for this project and has greatly benefited politically from selling the Narmada dream. He has projected the dam as a matter of Gujarat8217;s asmita, or pride. Now the project has come to be a matter of Modi8217;s asmita. There is no point in beating the Sardar Sarovar drum if you cannot ensure that the vital distribution network that is to take the water to the people who need it is missing, or at a very nascent stage of construction.

Consider the great opportunity costs of not getting the entire distribution grid on track. While the Sardar Sarovar Project can, at the dam8217;s present height, discharge 10,000 to 15,000 cubic metres per second, or cusecs, today water is being discharged only at the rate of 3,200 cusecs. Gujarat is therefore being denied anything from 6,800 to 11,800 cusecs of water that could have greened its parched fields and brought relief to its water-starved towns and cities. Modi does not have the option of moving on. The people of his state will hold him to the Narmada promise and it is in his own interest that he delivers.