As Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurates India’s biggest dam, Sardar Sarovar Dam, on his 67th birthday on Sunday, here’s a list of five key points you need to know about the project that took more than half a century to complete:
- Conceptualised in as early as 1946 and the foundation stone laid by country’s first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on 5 April 1961, the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada river near Navagam, Gujarat, is the world’s second biggest after the Grand Coulee Dam in the United States and reportedly the biggest in terms of volume of concrete used in it.
- The dam stretches up to 1.2 kms and it is 138.68 metres high. The dam has already earned more than its construction cost through sale of electricity produced.
- The power generated from the dam will be shared among three states — Madhya Pradesh (27%), Maharashtra (57%) and Gujarat (16%).
- Activists have been long demanding that the filling of the reservoir with water be stopped immediately and the dam’s gates remain open so as to reduce the water level.
- There have been protests against the project for years, especially in some parts of Madhya Pradesh and thousands of families were displaced following increase in the height of the dam. Activist Medha Patkar has been spearheading the protests under the banner of Narmada Bachao Andolan.
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