The Supreme Court on Wednesday issued notices to the Union government, state governments of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra and the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) while hearing a petition on rise in water level of Sardar Sarovar Dam leading to submergence of affected areas without due rehabilitation.
The notices were issued by the division bench of Justice N.V. Ramana and Justice Ajay Rastogi upon the petition of five affected persons from Barwani, Dhar and Alirajpur districts of Madhya Pradesh.
The respondents have been asked to reply to the notices before the next hearing of the case scheduled on September 26. During the next hearing, the question of rehabilitation before submergence as well as the water level to be maintained in the Sardar Sarovar Dam will be dwelt upon, a statement by the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) has said.
The writ petition has challenged the filling up of the Sardar Sarovar Dam to full capacity of 138.68 meters ahead of schedule and in contravention of the Narmada Water Tribunal directive and earlier judgments of the Supreme Court, wherein it is mandated that no submergence should take place without rehabilitation, the NBA statement said.
Sanjay Parikh, senior advocate appearing for petitioners, pointed out before the Supreme Court that in April this year the state of Gujarat insisted that the dam should be filled to full capacity of 138.68m, to check the safety of the dam and test the dam gates. The NCA, on July 15, permitted increase in water level according to a fixed schedule, despite noting that the Narmada Tribunal Award stipulates that no submergence should take place without rehabilitation.
According to the schedule, the water level in Sardar Sarovar was to be increased to 134.18 metres by August 31, to 137.72 meters by September 30 and to full capacity of 138.68 metres by October 15.
Though it was noted while allowing the scheduled rise in water level that rehabilitation wasn't complete, the NCA only said according to the Narmada Tribunal award and orders of the Supreme Court, action plan should be framed by each state to shift people.
Due to this illegal decision, water started rising in the reservoir. It was increased by targeting the special date of September 17, 2019 (birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi) to reach the full reservoir level of 138.68 meters, in violation of the time schedule fixed, the petition said.
“As a result, 178 villages, people living there with women and children, having livelihoods, including prime agriculture, fisheries, cattle grazing, water transport, trading etc. with schools, dispensaries, places of worship, roads, large number of trees, grazing land got submerged, resulting in the human calamity of the worst kind. The said decision was, in fact, a cruel and inhuman way to compel people to vacate under threat of and imposed submergence,” the petition said.
The advocate of the petitioners also mentioned before the court that the Supreme Court judgments in 2000 and 2005 clearly mentioned that even temporary submergence cannot take place till resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) is complete. After the last order in February, 2017, the complete R&R should have been done, but this did not happen and the problems faced by the affected people continue.
