The Hindu Business Line : New growth engine for economy

The completed Sardar Sarovar project would irrigate an additional 19 lakh hectares and boost India’s economy the same way the Bhakra Nangal dam did by helping usher in the Green Revolution in Punjab and Haryana in the 1960s and the 1970s, says VIRENDRA PANDIT

The Narmada waters are expected to revolutionise agriculture in Gujarat and Rajasthan, major parts of which are a vast expanse of deserts.

With the formal release of Narmada waters from Gujarat to Rajasthan last month, the prospects of the Sardar Sarovar dam emerging as the next Bhakra Nangal dam to usher in the second Green Revolution have brightened.

The 458-km-long Narmada Main Canal (NMC), from the dam site in Bharuch district of Gujarat to Sancher in Rajasthan, is viewed as a new lifeline for agriculture in north Gujarat and adjoining areas of the neighbouring State, where the ‘Virgin Riv er’ of the puranas will now begin irrigating nearly 2.50 lakh hectares of arid land each.

NMC will go up to the border districts of Barmer and Jaisalmer which, ironically, and for the first time in known history, were flooded a couple of years ago due to excessive rains!

Much to be done

When completed, the dam and the network of main canals, branch canals and minor and sub-minor canals will irrigate nearly 19 lakh hectares in Gujarat. As of now, while the NMC has been completed, a lot remains to be done on the canal networking. While nearly 58 per cent work has so far been completed on branch canals (1,600 km out of 2,760 km), minor and sub-minor canals would take years to complete if their current status of completion of 28 per cent (6,330 km out of 22,790 km) and 20 per cent (8,000 km out of 38,000 km), respectively, is anything to go by.

Even in Tharad in Banaskantha district of Gujarat, where Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, formally ‘flagged off’ the Narmada waters to Rajasthan on March 27, drinking water from the river will take another two years to reach the household taps through minor and sub-minor canals.

The delays in such a mammoth project appear natural. The Sardar Sarovar dam on the inter-State river Narmada is the only terminal dam on this river in Gujarat. Its canal network passes through 15 of the total 26 districts of the State. At its full height of 455 feet (138 metres), it will produce 1,450 MW of hydroelectric power for the western grid.

Its irrigation potential lies mainly in the normally drought-prone districts of the Saurashtra-Kutch region, where the Narmada waters would irrigate nearly 15 lakh hectares.

With this new potential, Gujarat, where the agriculture sector accounts for 30 per cent of total electricity consumption (2,000 MW), would save 50 per cent of power in this sector alone.

Multiplier effect

Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL) ex-Chairman and former Chief Secretary, Mr P. K. Laheri, says the completed dam would produce 6,000 million units of hydroelectricity worth Rs 2,500 crore per annum at the existing rates. It would have an eight-fold multiplier effect on the GDP of the country.

Besides, the dam would benefit about 18 lakh farmers in Gujarat, increasing their annual income from the current average Rs 30,000 per hectare to about Rs 1 lakh per hectare if they followed appropriate crop patterns of oilseed, tree cultivation, floriculture and horticulture. It would also increase their competitiveness in terms of exports.

The Narmada waters are seen as revolutionising agriculture and horticulture, productivity, variety and crop patterns in Gujarat and Rajasthan, major parts of which are vast expanse of deserts.

Already, the benefits are visible: while the average milk production in Gujarat was growing at 4 per cent, it was increasing at 11 per cent in areas where the Narmada waters have begun to be supplied since the last four years. It is going to boost the dairy industry as well due to the easier availability of fodder and water in drought-prone districts from where lakhs of milch cattle used to migrate every year. March 2008 witnessed a bumper crop of potato, being sold at less than Rs 4 a kg at many places in Gujarat.

Apart from solving the drinking water problem in most drought-prone areas of Gujarat and boosting industrialisation of the arid Kutch district and north Gujarat, it would also bring under cultivation about 2.50 lakh hectares of land in Sancher and other adjoining and drought-prone areas of Rajasthan. Gujarat has already completed 28,000-km of canal network, of a total of 86,000-km, and started reaping benefits, to be followed by Rajasthan.

Experts says that, since 1947, Gujarat’s cultivable land under irrigation could grow up only to 12 lakh hectares through the various small-, medium- and large-scale irrigation schemes. The completed Sardar Sarovar project alone would irrigate an additional 19 lakh hectares to boost India’s economy the same way the Bhakra Nangal dam did for Punjab and Haryana’s Green Revolution in the 1960s and 1970s.

It would support rural economies and the poor would not be forced to indulge in unlawful activities to make a living in the sensitive Indo-Pakistan border areas. Second, proper irrigation would decrease instances of incurable diseases due to fluoride contamination at groundwater level affecting a large number of people and cattle at present.

Third, easy availability of potable water to nearly 10,000 of total 18,000 villages and 135 urban habitats in Gujarat would liberate the people from the daily drudgery of fetching drinking water from miles. Fourth, many children, who waste hours waiting for water tankers, would not drop out of schools.

Effect on GDP

The dam would produce more than six billion units of hydel power at peak load per annum, worth about Rs 2,500 crore at a minimum rate of Rs 3 per unit of power. Taking electricity’s share in GDP as only 5 per cent, India’s potential GDP may increase by an additional Rs 45,000 crore per annum. Its cumulative impact on India’s GDP could be an additional 6-8 per cent growth, more than the revenues of the entire textile sector ($36 billion) and of software exports ($80 billion) in 2006-07.

As for India’s cost-effective energy security for economic security to achieve its ambitious goals, experts say that at a growth rate of 6-8 per cent, our GDP is projected to increase three-fold by 2020. The US’ National Intelligence Council report ‘Mapping Global Future’ predicted in 2006 that China and India would rise to become new major global powers, like Germany in the 19th Century and the US in the early 20th.

The Goldman Sachs report, too, predicted a fast-track growth of the two nations in its report on the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) bloc. But, at present, India ranks even behind Pakistan in terms of total per capita energy consumption: US (8080 kg equivalent of oil), Japan (4026), Germany (4017), China (597), Pakistan (293) and India (290).

Installed capacity

India’s current installed capacity is 1.10 lakh MW per annum. In 2004-05, the country produced 587 billion units, which increased by about 5.5 per cent in 2005-06. Thermal power accounted for 486 billion units. The share of hydel was 84 per cent and that of nuclear power, 17 per cent. Gujarat consumed 6,500 MW (30 billion units), including 3,500 MW produced by GEB and 3,000 MW purchased from NTPC and other sources.

Envisaging a dependable flow of 28 million acre feet (MAF) per annum in the Narmada river, Gujarat’s share will be nine MAF of water and 16 per cent of hydel power, Madhya Pradesh’s 18.25 MAF and 57 per cent, Rajasthan’s 0.5 MAF and Maharashtra’s 0.25 MAF and 27 per cent.

Till the project’s conception, only 10 per cent of Narmada waters was utilised although the river’s basin area was as large as 97,410 square km. The Government had set up the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (NWDT) in 1969, under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956. Its final verdict came in 1979 to decide the dam height which, after a protracted court battle, stands at 121.92 metres at present as against 138 metres when completed.

Project details

The project envisages construction of 30 big, 135 medium and about 3,000 small dams on the nearly 1,300-km-long Narmada river and its tributaries. The Narmada, originating in Chhattisgarh and traversing about 1,100 km through Madhya Pradesh, passes through Bharuch district before joining the Arabian Sea. The dam would solve the flooding problem in 200 villages downstream in Bharuch district.

The mammoth project hinges on two mega-dams, the Narmada Sagar Dam in Madhya Pradesh and the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat, to be built in the middle and at the tail-end of the river valley.

As against the original estimated cost of Rs 6,000 crore (at 1986-87 prices), to construct the 1,200-metre-long dam at the tri-junction of the three States, nearly Rs 25,000 crore has already been spent by Gujarat. The dam will create a 213-square mile reservoir in the three participatory States.

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