Funds to Gujarat for Sardar Sarovar project questionable: NBA

The Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) today charged that it was not right on the part of the Centre to sanction Rs 11,000 crore to Gujarat as financial assistance for the under construction Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP).

Addressing a press conference here, NBA leader, Medha Patkar said that a memorandum had been signed recently between the Centre and the Gujarat government to grant Rs 11,000 crore to Gujarat for SSP's canals and this was highly questionable.

"It is absolutely against law and justice," she said adding that the Centre cannot disagree with critical comments by the highest constitutional authority like comptroller and auditor general on the gross mis-utilisation and underutilisation of crores of funds granted till now.

Stating that SSP's benefit and cost are in a doldrums, Patkar said that its cost sky-rocketed from the original estimate of Rs 4,200 crore in 1983 to Rs 70,000 crore in 2012 and may shoot upto Rs 80,000 crore till 2015.

All this is a gross violation of the Investment clearance of the Planning Commission which should be deemed to have lapsed, Patkar alleged and added that with 30,000 crores already spent on the project, only seven per cent of the reservoir water was used and just 70,000 hectares of land irrigated till today.

Since the environmental clearance was received in 1987, Gujarat went ahead pushing the dam height without planning either the canals or the command area development on the project, the NBA leader said.