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Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award |
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Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award (1979) (pdf file) --
The Award provides the basic law governing state-wise allotment of Narmada waters, rehabilitation of displaced families and construction of Sardar Sarovar and other Narmada dams. A major achievement of the Award is that it orders land-for-land rehabilitation of the Project Affected Families as opposed to cash-compensation prescribed by the draconic Land Acquisition Act of 1894, which India still follows for all its other projects. Alternate irrigable agricultural land and house-plots have to be readied 1 year before submergence so that people are resettled and rehabilitated 6 months before submergence.
The main problem with the Award is that it understimates the number of displaced families by nearly a factor of 8 and overestimates the amount of water in the Narmada by about 20%. Thus the Sardar Sarovar dam size is fixed higher than it should have been. The problem of the scale of displacement we see today is because the dam's height was fixed based on incorrectly estimated data.
Displaced people of the Narmada valley came together as Narmada Bachao Andolan in 1986 and fought for their rehabilitation rights as well as for their democratic right to participate in planning of projects. They petitioned the court to review the Narmada Tribunal Award and lower the dam's height. They also pointed that the environmental clearance given for the SSP dam was conditional and the conditions have not been met and the clerance had lapsed. At the minimimum the asked for an independent committee to monitor rehabilitation. Now here is how the Supreme Court responded over the years....
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