Rejoinder on behalf of Sardar Sarovar Project affected persons to the Gujarat Government’s affidavit: 29/04/06

THE DEVELOPMENT ARGUMENT BY STATE OF GUJARAT: THE TRUTH:

The Truth of Development argument in the affidavit filed by the State of Gujarat, by completely ignoring the importance of resettlement and rehabilitation, which is mandatory before and increase in dam height, it has been projected as if the stoppage of construction will result in an impediment to the process of development which will not be in the public interest.  In advancing this argument, it is forgotten that oustees whose land and houses are taken have suffered in this process and any development at their cost cannot be said to be development in the true sense as every development should be meant for benefit of the people.  These aspects have been analysed here in reply to counter affidavit filed by the Government of Gujarat and to give a true picture before the court. 

TRUE AND CORRECT PICTURE AS TO THE BENEFITS FROM THE DAM:

1.       It is submitted that the State of Gujarat in its counter affidavit has claimed that increase in height of the dam from 110.64 m to 121.92 m would lead to three kinds of benefits: Drinking water, Irrigation and Power. It is necessary that, before relying on these claims, they are closely examined as to see the picture in its correct perspective. It is also important, while examining these claims, to keep in mind the claims made by Gujarat government when the case for increasing the height from 100 m to 110.64 m was made, as can be seen from some press clippings that appeared at that time.

2.       Thus, when dam height was increased from 100 m to 110.63 m, State of Gujarat claimed that this will lead to:

Ø                  Availability of  3.5 Million Acre Feet (MAF) water for Gujarat and Rajasthan

Ø                  Additional irrigation to 2.18 to 5 lakh hectares.

Ø                  Increase in storage capacity from 2600 Million Cubic meters (MCM) to 3700 MCM.

Ø                  Sufficient water for taking drinking water to whole of Gujarat.

3.            However, the correct factual position is far from these tall claims about benefits available at 110.63 mtr. made by the State of Gujarat which are mentioned below:

A.            Drinking Water

According to the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam’s website

(www.sardarsarovardam.org),

“A special allocation of 0.86 MAF of water has been made to provide drinking water to 135 urban centers and 8215 villages (45% of total 18144 villages of Gujarat) within and out-side command in Gujarat for present population of 18 million and prospective population of over 40 million by the year 2021.”

Thus, water required for providing drinking water to the full 8215 villages and 135 towns was available at 110.64 m in June 2004 itself, when total water available at SSP was 3.5 MAF as claimed by the State of Gujarat. The State of Gujarat’s contention now that if the dam height is increased to 121.92 m, it will be able to provide drinking water to 4000 villages 57 cities/urban centers instead of 2044 villages and 57 cities/urban centers which is being provided currently is an attempt to mislead this Honourable Court and the people of Gujarat. It is submitted that if Gujarat had put in place the delivery system necessary to take drinking water to all the 8215 villages and 135 towns as per plans by June 2004, it could have provided drinking water to all the planned areas by June 2004. If it has not been able to do it, that is only because of its own lack of capacity to put in place the required delivery system and not due to lack of availability of water at SSP. 

Furthermore, the CAG Report according to the Audit Report (Civil) for the year ended 31 March 2005 for Gujarat, prepared by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (section 3.2), states as follows:

“Highlights: Sardar Sarovar Narmada Canal Based Bulk Water Transmission Project aimed at providing assured safe drinking water to scarcity-hit Saurashtra and Kachchh regions. The master plan envisaged distribution of water through regional and group water supply schemes. The Project commenced in 1999-2000 was scheduled to be completed by 2002, but, was lagging behind due to defective planning and lack of co-ordination among different agencies. Water was being supplied only to 31 per cent of the projected villages and large number of villages and towns had to rely on local sources/water tankers. Some of the significant points noticed in audit are as follows:

Þ                 Obtaining loan from commercial bank instead of Housing and Urban Development Corporation proved costlier by Rs.17.37 crore. (Paragraph 3.2.7.1)

Þ                 Only 29 per cent of installed capacity of water was used and only 415 of 1,342 targeted villages/ towns were covered (31 per cent). (Paragraph 3.2.8.3)”

It is clear from a reading of the official Audit report that Gujarat planned to provide drinking water to all the villages of Gujarat by 2002. However, it has not been able to achieve this till date because Gujarat has been unable to put the required delivery system in place and not because of lack of availability of water from SSP.

B.            Irrigation

As can be seen from the perusal of Annexure 1, when clearance was given to increase the height of the SSP dam to 110.64 in March 2004, Gujarat claimed that this will make available to Gujarat an additional 3.5 MAF of water and help achieve additional irrigation of up to 5 lakh ha. If we consider the fact that Gujarat plans to provide irrigation to 17.92 lakh ha of land from its share of 9 MAF from Narmada, we can see that from 3.5 MAF, it can irrigate more than 6 lakh ha. However, for this irrigation benefits to be realized, the full infrastructure of taking the water to the fields needs to be put in place. However, according to official website of Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (Kindly see last line of table in Annexure - 2 the extracts from the official website of Sardar Sarovar Nigam), Gujarat has been able to irrigate this year about 57,539 ha of land, less than 10% of what it claimed could be possible when the dam height was increased to 110.64 m. Thus, the claim of Gujarat in its affidavit now that if the dam height is increased to 121.92, it would be able to additionally irrigate 3.5 lakh ha is misleading and a futile attempt to cover up its failure to utilize even 10% of the water available at 110.64 m as per the SSP plans. Use of  SSP water for release into rivers like Sabarmati, or into other lakes etc that Gujarat has been doing since August 2002 (when IBPT was inaugurated) does not find any place in SSP plans and is again a sign of failure on the part of Gujarat to utilize the water available at 110.64 m.

The water usage by Gujarat at 110.6 mts is summarized in the table below.

Note: a)  since 0.86 MAF have been set aside for  8215 villages and 135 urban centers  at the full height, it is proportionately about 0.25 MAF for Gujarat’s claimed 2044 villages and 57 urban centres. b) 9 MAF for 17.92 lakh Ha of irrigation at full height works to 0.29 MAF for 57,539 Ha.

Of the 3.5 MAF that Gujarat claimed was available at 110.6 mts, it used just 0.54 MAF for drinking and irrigation, going by its own claims of benefits provided. That about 3.5 MAF waters entered the canals is clear from the fact that CHPH power house generated 183.555 MU in 2005 when waters fell from the dam through its turbines to the canals. They entered the canals and were available, but were not used for drinking and irrigation since the canal network is not completed and support infrastructure isn’t built.  Thus they were poured in other rivers.

It is noteworthy to compare SSP’s performance with other more local irrigation initiatives in Gujarat.  As per page 15 the “Socio Economic Review Gujarat State, 2004-05” published by the Government of Gujarat, an additional irrigation of 3.5 lakh ha [this figure was 2.15 lakh ha as mentioned on page 15 of “Socio Economic Review, Gujarat State, 2003-04, similarly in the Gujarat Budget speech for 2003-4, Gujarat Finance Minister said in March 2003 that “Approximately 2 lakh ha of irrigation potential has been created from check dam/ tank constructed in rainfed non irrigated area under Sardar Patel Sahbhagi Jalsanchaya Yojana”.] has been achieved in Gujarat, as per the review, through “indirect benefits through water conservation programme”. This benefit has mostly come about in Saurashtra, largely over the last five years and in this effort the local communities have played a very big role. It is also relevant to note here that the total expense on this effort has been less than 10% of the money spent on SSP so far (over Rs 21, 000 crores). It may be recalled that total area to be irrigated by SSP in Saurashtra is almost the same figure at 3.86 lakh ha. This only illustrates that alternatives to SSP for Gujarat exist and they provide faster benefits, that are much cheaper, and they come without the huge social and environmental impacts that SSP has.

C.            Power

Many contradictory claims are being made about power generation possible if the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam is increased from the current height of 110.64 m to 121.92 m. Simple physics tells us that actual power generation would depend on three factors: quantum of water available for power generation, height through which the water falls and availability of power generation units (machinery). If all other factors remain constant, then power generation would be directly proportional to the height through which water falls. Thus, the loss of power if height of the dam takes a pause at 110.64 m instead of raising it to 121.92 m would be about 12% for power generation from River Bed Power House (RBPH) and 35% for power generation from Canal Head Power House (CHPH).  Taking into consideration the fact that in 2005-06, of the total power generation at SSP, CHPH generated 9.3% and RBPH generated 90.7%, the loss in power generation at SSP if the dam height is halted at 110.64 m, would be 14.14 %. Thus, if the claim is that SSP can generate 400 crore units at 121.92 m, then the annual loss in generation, if the dam height takes a pause at 110.64 m, would be 56 crore units. This more or less matches with the SSP engineers’ claim on NDTV of 550 MU (or 55 crore units) loss in electricity generated if dam is not raised to 121.9 mts. (NDTV report of April 15 is on their web-site and is attached as Annexure).  As stated in the Annexure, the loss figure also takes into account the additional storage available.

Since the dam has already been raised by 2-3 m beyond 110.64 m, if dam construction is halted at this time, the loss will be slightly lower than 55-56  crore units.  .Thus the claim made by Gujarat government in its affidavit that increase in dam to 121.92 mts would lead to additional 350 crore units of electricity generation at SSP is totally baseless. In fact the increase due to additional height will only be 55 crore units, equivalent to Rs 110 crores (@ Rs 2 / unit).  Gujarat not only shows an exaggerated figure of 350 crore units but also by valuing the SSP electricity at Rs 4 / unit (SSP electricity is costlier than average) it comes up with a grand total of Rs 1400 crore for the benefit due to height increase, while actually the benefit is Rs 110 crores.

 While the increase in height to 121.92 leads only to a marginal increase in power, there is a significantly different reason why we should expect more electricity in the coming year than in the previous year. The dam height of 110.64 m was reached in June 2004. Thus, if all the power generation units were  in place by that date (it should have been as installation and dry test run of power generation units do not depend on increase in dam height), all the units could have started generation from July 2004. However the 5 turbine generator units of Canal Head Power House (each of 50 MW were commissioned only in the period Aug 2004 – December 2004.  That’s when SSP’s power started trickling in.  5 of the 6 units of the River Bed Power House (each unit of 250 MW) where commissioned one by one every 3 months or so from February 2005 to March 2006. The final unit is yet to be commissioned.  In 2005, RBPH produced 1550 MU of power as its units began functioning one by one. However as it was not commissioned in 2004, it didn’t produce any power, though the dam was constructed to  110.6 mts in June 2004 which is where it remained in 2005. In 2006, more power is expected simply because 5 units of RBPH are already functioning when the year started in January 2005, while last year none were functioning. Taking into account the seasonal variation in water flow at SSP, in the 21 month period between July 2004 and March 2006, SSP could have produced about 667 crore units even though the dam was at 110.6 mts. In reality, it produced 221.5 crore units (Kindly see Annexure - 47 the extracts from the official website of Sardar Sarovar Nigam). Thus, SSP produced about 445.5 crore units less than what it should have produced in this 21 month period. This massive under performance and loss is entirely due to the inefficiency and mismanagement of the Sardar Sarovar Nigam and responsibility needs to be fixed for this loss. This loss is more than what SSP would loose even if height is halted at 110.64 m for over 8 years. It does not seem that power generation is a big priority at Sardar Sarovar Project. It is also relevant to note here that T&D losses in the three beneficiary states (Gujarat: 32.36%, Maharashtra: 36.62%, Madhya Pradesh: 37.71%) are much above the accepted norms of 15-20% and that little efforts are being done to reduce the losses. It is submitted that there is little justification for increasing the height of the SSP dam to 121.92 m even from power generation point of view, till acceptable, legal and just R&R is achieved.

1. Another false and misleading claim which has been made by the State of Gujarat is regarding the Water Diversion from SSP. The State of Gujarat has claimed in its affidavit that water for any purpose cannot be drawn below 110.64 m is again false and misleading. Gujarat in fact has been using water from SSP since at least 5-6 years Before August 2002, it was pumping water from the existing reservoir into the canal. Between August 2002 and August 2004, it was diverting water through the IBPT (whose off take is at about 89 mts) and since August 2004 is has been diverting water through the CHPH, (Kindly see Annexure - 47 the extracts from the official website of Sardar Sarovar Nigam). This water has been used for all the designated purposes of drinking water supply, irrigation and for power generation. It is submitted that here it needs to be kept in view that Narmada is a perennial river, so some water is always available in the river. Moreover, with the construction and commissioning of the massive Narmada Sagar Project upstream on the Narmada river in Madhya Pradesh in January 2004, the downstream SSP has received regulated releases from the upstream dam that stores the monsoon flows and allows gradual release of water across the river.
2. The balance of convenience therefore clearly dictates that the height of the Dam be paused at the present level, till the rehabilitation of all the oustees who would be affected at 121.92 M is satisfactorily completed as required under NWDT award and Supreme Court orders. This time should be used by Gujarat to complete their canals, water pipelines and other infrastructure needed to deliver the water which is already available and which would be available at the increased height. They should also use this time to complete the installation of the remaining power generation unit/turbines and complete the infrastructure of the power stations.