Narmada dam's height to stay: Soz

       New Delhi: Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz today said that the government had put a stay on raising the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam for the present and the matter had been forwarded to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for further action. Soz was speaking to reporters after a meeting of the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) review committee. The three-hour long meeting was convened by Saifuddin Soz to review the decision taken by the NCA to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam from 110.64 metres to 121.92 metres. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said, "There is a tie. No decision has been taken. The issue remains unresolved with three fourths of the concerned states in favour of increasing the height of the dam." Modi also said that the Centre was bending under Medha Patkar's pressure and was afraid of the repercussions of her 18-day-old hunger-strike. He also accused the United Progressive Alliance Government of attempting to halt the increase in the dam's height as it posed a threat to the future of all states. The meeting was attended by Soz, Environment and Forests Minister A Raja, Maharashtra Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, and Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan CMs Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Vasundhara Raje.

    The meeting came in the wake of hunger-strike called by the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) activists. The protest spearheaded by Medha Patkar demanded the Centre not to raise the dam's height, as several thousands people have turned homeless and will in future meet the same fate because the Centre has failed to rehabilitate the displaced ones. The Sardar Sarovar Dam project is under controversy for more than a decade. It is a huge project, involving thousands of hectares of land and displacing over lakhs of families. The Supreme Court in its judgement in 2005 had said that raising the height of the dam would not be permitted unless the rehabilitation programme was carried out properly. Reports from the officials confirmed that the rehabilitation process was still a failure.

Modi does a Patkar, for 51 hours

      New Delhi: A highly agitated Gujarat Chief Minister Narender Modi said on Saturday that he too would go on a fast to protest against the Manmohan Singh Government's decision to stay the raising of the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam. Reacting to Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz's recommendation for a temporary suspension of the construction work of the Narmada dam, Modi said that it seemed ideal to take route adopted by Narmada Bachao Adolan (Save Narmada Movement) activist Medha Patkar to register his strong protest to the Government's decision. It maybe recalled that Patkar has been on a hunger strike for the last 18 days in a bid to get the Central Government to rehabilitate more than 35,000 evacuees and prevent moves to raise the height of the dam to over 121 meters. Modi said his hunger-strike would not be on as large a scale as Patkar's as her agitation was anti-development and had no connection to any human cause. He asked why Patkar's humanity was when over 0.4 million Kashmiri people became refugees in their own country. He said that Soz had conveyed wrong information and had no authority to recommend the suspension of the construction work when the review committee meeting of the Naramada Control Authority had ended in a tie.

    He accused Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh of "having cheated the people of Maharashtra by making a timid demand which was also outrightly rejected by his own party men. He alleged that there were no discussions about the suspension of the construction work in the review committee meeting and the present construction work undergoing in the Sardar Sarovar Project is completely in sync with the Supreme Court's judgement. Modi also did not make it clear whether he will approach the Supreme Court on this issue as he said that the apex court would follow its course. The BJP, he said, would take this issue to the people's court, indicating that the construction of the dam would now become a political issue to be fought in the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. "There is already Grievance Redress Authority (GRA) set up to look into the complaints regarding the rehabilitations and they are satisfied with the rehabilitation process", Modi said. The Narmada issue is taking shape of political confrontation with the people of Ahmedabad protesting against cine star Aamir Khan's support to the NBA and have forced the distributors and cinema hall owners to withdraw all the films of Khan. A full-page advertisement has also been published in the national dailies by the eminent business personalities of Gujarat and the religious leaders supporting "the earliest completion of the Narmada Dam" and emphasizing that the construction of the dam would be highly beneficial for the people of the concerned states.

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