Medha plea to speed up project investigation

      New Delhi: Social activist and Narmada Bachao Andolan pioneer Medha Patkar said on Wednesday that the government should speed up its investigation into the height of Sardar Sarovar Dam. Patkar is on a hunger-strike along with two of her colleagues for the past eight days against the government's decision to raise the height of a bitterly opposed Sardar Sarovar Dam Project in Gujarat.

     She, along with the displaced tribals have been staging a protest outside the Central government offices demanding that the height of the 110.64 metre Sardar Sarovar Dam remains unchanged. Agitating activists said that the Centre has accepted to send in its team to the affected places to take first hand information on the area. "Wherever they go, they will see many problems, the surveys have not been completed; records have not been filled. They just have to cross the river for 15 minutes and find what is going on. Our friends are already there. The media glare should not be on me but on the villages," said Patkar to reporters here. On Tuesday, Patkar accepted lime juice from Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz, but refused to break her fast until the government immediately stopped the construction work at the Narmada Dam. CPI (M) Politburo member Brinda Karat also joined the protest lashing out at the Centre for overlooking the rehabilitation process before going with the elevation work. "Is the government so powerful now that it has put a decision by the Supreme Court on hold and conduct negotiations on its own. Where is the scope of any negotiations based on the decision? The question is about the decision. The court said if the height of the dam has to be increased it has to be done after the rehabilitation of thousands of families. This is the demand. You can't overrule the decision of the court and then put pressure," said Karat.

     Patkar, who has been leading the campaign against the dam project for over a decade, has said that construction for raising the height of the dam by another 11-metres has already begun without any clear resettlement of many more villages that will now be flooded. Patkar has also appealed to the Prime Minister against the move and courted arrest on March 26 along with 145 others while trying to block entry to a government office. Environmentalists have over the years fiercely opposed the Sardar Sarovar Dam project on Narmada River, spread over Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, saying the fallout of displacing millions by the project far outweighs the benefits flowing from the dam. Estimate say at least 40,000 families have already been displaced in the reservoir area of the Sardar Sarovar dam and thousands more are in the waiting and activists say government was turning a blind eye to what she said is humanitarian crisis.

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