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Dams are not polluting
industries, says SC: PTI

While giving a green signal to the Sardar Sarovar Project, the Supreme Court ruled that construction of big dams cannot be equated with setting up of polluting industries, as far as their effect on the environment was concerned.

"What is being constructed is a large dam. The dam is neither a nuclear establishment nor a polluting industry. The construction of a dam undoubtedly would result in the change of environment but it will not be correct to presume that the construction of a large dam will result in ecological disaster," the court said.

Justice B N Kirpal, who wrote the majority judgment in the verdict given by a three-judge bench on Wednesday, said merely because there would be a change was no reason to presume that there would be ecological disaster.

"It is when the effect of the project is known then the principle of sustainable development would come into play which will ensure that mitigative steps are and can be taken to preserve the ecological balance," Justice Kirpal, with whom Chief Justice A S Anand concurred, said.

He said India had an experience of over 40 years in the construction of dams and added that experience did not show that construction of a large dam was not cost-effective or led to ecological or environmental degradation.

Justice Kirpal said, "On the contrary there has been ecological upgradation with the construction of large dams."

This ruling came from a three-judge bench, which disposed of a petition filed by Narmada Bachao Andolan, a non-governmental organisation led by Medha Patkar, which had challenged the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Project on the Narmada river.

Referring to the submergence of villages, the court said that the SSP reservoir level at 455 feet would affect 193 villages in Madhya Pradesh, 33 villages in Maharashtra and 19 villages in Gujarat. Of these, only four villages (three in Gujarat and one in Madhya Pradesh) are getting submerged fully and the total area of submergence was 11279 hectares (1877 Gujarat, 1519 Maharashtra and rest Madhya Pradesh).

Comparing the SSP with the Hirakud dam in Orissa, Shriramsagar in Andhra Pradesh, Gandhisagar in Madhya Pradesh, Tungabhadra in Karnataka and Nagarjunasagar in Andhra Pradesh, the court said, "The SSP has the least ratio of submergence to the area benefited (1.97 per cent). The ratio of some schemes is as much as 25 per cent."

The court said displacement of people due to major river valley projects had occurred in developed and developing countries.

The worrying factor was the absence of rehabilitation and relief schemes, it said and added that in the case of the SSP there was a definitive scheme under implementation.

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