Sardar Sarovar Dam

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The Sardar Sarovar Dam is a gravity dam

on the Narmada river near Navagam,
Gujarat in India. For 6Indian states,
Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharastra and
Rajasthan, receive water and electricity
supplied from the dam. The foundation
stone of the project was laid out by Prime
Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on 5 April 1961.
The project took form in 1979 as part of a
development scheme funded by the World
Bank through their International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development, to
increase irrigation and produce
hydroelectricity, using a loan of
US$200 million.[3] The construction for
dam begun in 1987, but the project was
stalled by the Supreme Court of India in
1995 in the backdrop of Narmada Bachao
Andolan over concerns of displacement of
people. In 2000–01 the project was
revived but with a lower height of 110.64
metres under directions from SC, which
was later increased in 2006 to 121.92
meters and 138.98 meters in 2017.[4] The
water level in the Sardar Sarovar Dam at
Kevadiya in Narmada district reached its
highest capacity at 138.68 metres on 15
September 2019.[5][6]
 Sardar Sarovar Dam

The Sardar Sarovar Dam on Narmada River

Location of
Sardar Sarovar
Dam in Gujarat

Official name Narmada valley

Country India

Location Navagam, Kevadiya

Colony, India

Coordinates 21°49′49″N 73°44′50″E

Status Operational
Construction began April 1987

Opening date 17 September 2017

Construction cost 25 billion ruppes

Owner(s) Gujarat,Madhya
pradhesh,Maharastra,Rajasthan.

Dam and spillways

Type of dam gravity dam,

Impounds Narmada River

Height 138.68 meters

Height (foundation) 163 m (535 ft)

Length 1,210 m (3,970 ft)

Spillway capacity 84,949 m3/s
(2,999,900 cu ft/s)

Reservoir
Total capacity 9.5 km3
(7,700,000 acre⋅ft)
Active capacity 5.8 km3
(4,700,000 acre⋅ft)

Catchment area 88,000 km2
(34,000 sq mi)

Surface area 375.33 km2
(144.92 sq mi)

Maximum length 214 km (133 mi)

Maximum width 1.77 km (1.10 mi)

Maximum water depth 140m

Normal elevation 138 m (453 ft)

Power Station

Operator(s) Sardar Sarovar

Narmada Nigam
Limited[1]

Commission date June 2006

Turbines Dam: 6 × 200 MW
Francis pump-turbine
Canal: 5 × 50 MW
Kaplan-type[2]

Installed capacity 1,450 MW [1 Billion kWh

every year]

Website
www.sardarsarovardam.org

Sardar Sarovar Dam

One of the 30 dams planned on river
Narmada, Sardar Sarovar Dam (SSD) is the
largest structure to be built. It is one of the
largest dams in the world.[7][8] It is a part of
the Narmada Valley Project, a large
hydraulic engineering project involving the
construction of a series of large irrigation
and hydroelectric multi-purpose dams on
the Narmada river. Following a number of
controversial cases before the Supreme
Court of India (1999, 2000, 2003), by 2014
the Narmada Control Authority had
approved a series of changes in the final
height – and the associated displacement
caused by the increased reservoir, from
the original 80 m (260 ft) to a final 163 m
(535 ft) from foundation.[9][10] The project
will irrigate more than 18,000 km2
(6,900 sq mi), most of it in drought prone
areas of Kutch and Saurashtra.

The dam's main power plant houses six

200 MW Francis pump-turbines to
generate electricity and include a pumped-
storage capability. Additionally, a power
plant on the intake for the main canal
contains five 50 MW Kaplan turbine-
generators. The total installed capacity of
the power facilities is 1,450 MW.[11]

Geographical location
To the south west Malwa plateau, the
dissected hill tracts culminate in the
Mathwar hills, located in Alirajpur district
of Madhya Pradesh. Below these hills
Narmada river flows through a long, terrific
gorge. This gorge extends into Gujarat
where the river is tapped by the Sardar
Sarovar dam.

Narmada Canal
The dam irrigates 17,920 km2
(6,920 sq mi) of land spread over
12 districts, 62 talukas, and 3,393 villages
(75% of which is drought-prone areas) in
Gujarat and 730 km2 (280 sq mi) in the
arid areas of Barmer and Jalore districts
of Rajasthan. The dam also provides flood
protection to riverine reaches measuring
30,000 ha (74,000 acres) covering 210
villages and Bharuch city and a population
of 400,000 in Gujarat.[12] Saurastra
Narmada Avataran Irrigation is a major
program to help irrigate a lot of regions
using the canal's water.

Solar power generation

In 2011, the government of Gujarat

announced plans to generate solar power
by placing solar panels over the canal,
making it beneficial for the surrounding
villages to get power and also help to
reduce the evaporation of water. The first
phase consists of placing panels along a
25  km length of the canal, with capacity
for up to, 25  MW of power.[13]

Controversy
The dam is one of India's most
controversial, and its environmental
impact and net costs and benefits are
widely debated. The World Bank was
initially funding SSD, but withdrew in 1994.
The Narmada Dam has been the centre of
controversy and protests since the late
1980s.[14]
One such protest takes centre stage in the
Spanner Films documentary Drowned Out
(2002), which follows one tribal family who
decide to stay at home and drown rather
than make way for the Narmada Dam.[15]
An earlier documentary film is called A
Narmada Diary (1995) by Anand
Patwardhan and Simantini Dhuru. The
efforts of Narmada Bachao Andolan
("Save Narmada Movement") to seek
"social and environmental justice" for
those most directly affected by the Sardar
Sarover Dam construction feature
prominently in this film. It received the
(Filmfare Award for Best Documentary-
1996).[16]
The figurehead of much of the protest is
Medha Patkar, the leader of the NBA[17]
The movement was cemented in 1989,
and received the Right Livelihood Award in
1991.

In an opinion piece in The Guardian, the

campaign led by the NBA activists was
accused of holding up the project's
completion and of even physically
attacking local people who accepted
compensation for moving.[18]

Support for the protests also came from

Indian author Arundhati Roy, who wrote
"The Greater Common Good", an essay
reprinted in her book The Cost of Living, in
protest of the Narmada Dam Project.[19] In
the essay, Roy states:

Big Dams are to a Nation's

"Development" what Nuclear
Bombs are to its Military
Arsenal. They are both weapons
of mass destruction. They're
both weapons Governments use
to control their own people.
Both Twentieth Century
emblems that mark a point in
time when human intelligence
has outstripped its own instinct
for survival. They're both
malignant indications of
civilisation turning upon itself.
They represent the severing of
the link, not just the link—the
understanding—between human
beings and the planet they live
on. They scramble the
intelligence that connects eggs
to hens, milk to cows, food to
forests, water to rivers, air to
life and the earth to human
existence.
Height increases

The Sardar Sarovar Dam,

undergoing height increase in 2006.

In February 1999, the Supreme Court of

India gave the go ahead for the dam's
height to be raised to 88 m (289 ft) from
the initial 80 m (260 ft).
In October 2000 again, in a 2-to-1
majority judgment in the Supreme Court,
the government was allowed to
construct the dam up to 90 m (300 ft).[9]
In May 2002, the Narmada Control
Authority approved increasing the height
of the dam to 95 m (312 ft).
In March 2004, the Authority allowed a
15 m (49 ft) height increase to 110 m
(360 ft).
In March 2006, the Narmada Control
Authority gave clearance for the height
of the dam to be increased from
110.64 m (363.0 ft) to 121.92 m
(400.0 ft). This came after 2003 when
the Supreme Court of India refused
allow the height of the dam to increase
again.
In August 2013, heavy rains raised the
reservoir level to 131.5 m (431 ft), which
forced 7,000 villagers upstream along
the Narmada River to relocate.[20]
On June 2014, Narmada Control
Authority gave the final clearance to
raise the height from 121.92 m
(400.0 ft) metres to 138.68 m
(455.0 ft)[21]
The Narmada Control Authority decided
on 17 June 2017 to raise the height of
the Sardar Sarovar Dam to its fullest
 height 163-meter by ordering the closure
of 30 Gates

Report of the Ministry of

Environment and Forests (MoEF)

The Second Interim Report of the Experts'

Committee set up by the Ministry of
Environment and Forests (MoEF) of the
Government of India to assess the
planning and implementation of
environmental safeguards with respect to
the Sardar Sarovar (SSP) and Indira Sagar
projects (ISP) on the Narmada River. The
report covers the status of compliances
on catchment area treatment (CAT), flora
and fauna and carrying capacity upstream,
command area development (CAD),
compensatory afforestation and human
health aspects in project impact areas.
Construction, on the other hand, has been
proceeding apace: the ISP is complete and
the SSP nearing completion. The report
recommends that no further reservoir-
filling be done at either SSP or ISP; that no
further work be done on canal
construction; and that even irrigation from
the existing network be stopped forthwith
until failures of compliance on the various
environmental parameters have been fully
remedied.[22]

Notes
1. http://www.sardarsarovardam.org/
2. "Pumped-Storage Hydroelectric
Plants — Asia-Pacific" . IndustCards.
Archived from the original on 8
December 2012. Retrieved 20 January
2012.
3. Original report – Narmada dam
development project (PDF).
Washington DC: World Bank. 6
February 1985. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
4. https://indianexpress.com/article/indi
a/sardar-sarovar-dam-years-of-
dispute-finally-full-height-narmada-
river-narendra-modi-4848513/
5. "Sardar Sarovar dam water level
touches its highest mark" . The
Economic Times. 15 September 2019.
Retrieved 16 September 2019.
6. "Sardar Sarovar Dam Water Level
Touches its Highest Mark, PM Modi to
Visit Site on Sept 17" . News18.
Retrieved 16 September 2019.
7. "PM Modi to inaugurate world's
second biggest dam on September
17" . The Indian Express. Indo-Asian
News Service. 14 September 2017.
Retrieved 31 December 2018.
8. "Narendra Modi inaugurates Sardar
Sarovar Dam" . Al Jazeera. 17
 September 2017. Retrieved
31 December 2018.
9. "BBC News — SOUTH ASIA — Go-
ahead for India dam project" . BBC.
10. "Sardar Sarovar Power Complex" .
Narmada Control Authority. Retrieved
20 January 2012.
11. Power-Project and Statue of unity was
made it is the tallest statue in all over
the world jai hind "World bank projects
in India – Narmada development"
Check |url= value (help). World
Bank. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
12. "Main Features of the Dam" .
supportnarmadadam.org. Retrieved
 15 April 2010.
13. "Soon, solar power panels on Narmada
canal:Modi" . dna.
14. Scudder T. (2003) (SSP), Unpublished
Manuscript. Retrieved 7 September
2007 India’s Sardar Sarovar Project
15. "Drowned Out: The first 10 minutes of
Drowned Out" . OneWorldTV. 28 July
2009.
16. "A Narmada Diary" . Archived from the
original on 21 February 2008.
Retrieved 13 June 2008.
17. Friends of River Narmada. Retrieved 9
July 2007 The Sardar Sarovar Dam: a
Brief Introduction
18. Kirk Leech (3 March 2009). "The
Narmada Dambusters are wrong" .
The Guardian. Retrieved 4 March 2009.
19. Roy, Arundhati (April 1999). "The
Greater Common Good" . Friends of
River Narmada. Retrieved 29 May
2009.
20. "7000 villagers relocated after water
level in Narmada dam crosses 130m" .
Express News Service. 25 August
2013. Retrieved 25 August 2013.
21. "NCA permits raising Narmada dam
height after eight years" . The Times
of India. 12 June 2014. Retrieved
12 June 2014.
22. Mahadevan Ramaswamy and
Ramaswamy R. Iyer (31 March 2010).
"A damaging report" . The Hindu.
Chennai: "Kasturi & Sons Ltd.
Retrieved 15 April 2010.

References
Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam.
(01/2002) Retrieved 7 September 2007
Narmada for People and Environment
Dam-Affected Resettlement in Gujarat,
by Chhandasi Pandya. Retrieved 13 July
2007 Article
SECOND INTERIM REPORT OF THE
COMMITTEE FOR ASSESSMENT OF
SURVEY/ STUDIES / PLANNING AND
 IMPLEMENTATION, OF THE PLANS ON
ENVIRONMENTAL SAFEGUARD
MEASURES FOR SARDAR SAROVAR &
INDIRA SAGAR PROJECTS Report

Association for India's Development

website

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media

related to Narmada Dam Project.

Friends of River Narmada

Official Website of NVDA – Narmada
Valley Development Authority
 Official website of Sardar Sarovar
Narmada Nigam Limited
Regularly updated news clippings about
Narmada dams
Concluding letter from Independent
Review (also known as Morse
Committee) constituted by World Bank
in 1992 to assess Sardar Sarovar Dam
Project djvu format or in pdf format .

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