Narmada dam oustees have been half-heartedly compensated. Can Sardar Sarovar Project be called 'successful'?

NBA leader Medha Patkar (right)

Counterview Desk

Statement by Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA):

In all, in Madhya Pradesh 22,822 hectares of land has been submerged, out of which 7,883 hectares is prime fertile agricultural land. This has displace 32,679 families (which is of a magnitude unprecedented in human history). Of these 15,946 families displaced have been half-heartedly compensated. Can, even after all this, the Sardar Sarovar Project, be called 'successful'?
In March 2017 the Narmada Control Authority in its annual report declared completion of Rehabilitation and Resettlement (R&R) work. Then how come between June 2017 and August 2017, the state of Madhya Pradesh declared in Rs 900 crore package for compensating the displaced?
According to the 8 February 2017 order of the Supreme Court, families who were refused 5 acres of land were ordered Rs 60 lakh in compensation, and families duped in the rehabilitation scam (ranging in crores) were to be paid Rs. 15 lakh compensation and relief. While 734 families received the Rs 60 lakh package, hundreds of families still remain.
According to Madhya Pradesh government records only 993 families out of 1,358 have been compensated till now. Hundreds of names in the eligibility list of Rs 5.80 lakh package are fake. According to orders of the Supreme Court, as also the order of the Madhya Pradesh High Court dated 28 November 2017 given to the Grievance Redressal Authority, all facilities were to be provided in the rehabilitation sites, but not even 1% of that is fulfilled.
By 31 April 2018 all rehabilitation sites and displaced people are be provided with adequate water and drinking water but today, when this destructive project has caused a drought, where will that water come from? Promises of water harvesting, earthquake monitoring and rehabilitation of temples and religious sites still remain incomplete. And still the project was shown to be complete with 100% rehabilitation in court and was forcibly inaugurated on the birthday of Narendra Modi.
Today, there are plans to interlink Narmada with Kshipra, Gambhir, Kali, Sindhu, Mahi and Parvati rivers. There are declarations that 70 cities and 300 villages in Malwa will be given water from Narmada. Industries all across have been relentlessly pumping water from Narmada for industrial output.
Even after inauguration, in Gujarat only 6 lakh hectares out of the promised 18 lakh hectares are officially supposed to be receiving irrigation waters from the Sardar Sarovar Project. Truth is, not even 3 lakh hectares are getting that benefit. With the electricity plant shut, Madhya Pradesh can't even receive 50% of the electricity it was allocated.

Comments

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

By Rajiv Shah This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan* “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.

The golden crop: How turmeric is transforming women's lives in tribal India

By Vikas Meshram* When the lush green fields of turmeric sway in the tribal belt of southern Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat, it is not merely a spice crop — it is the golden glow of self-reliance. In villages where even basic spices once had to be bought from the market, the very soil today is yielding a prosperity that has transformed the lives of thousands of families. At the heart of this transformation is the initiative of Vaagdhara, which has linked turmeric with livelihoods, nutrition, and village self-governance — gram swaraj.

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

By Ram Puniyani The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey* In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.

False claim? What Venezuela is witnessing is not surrender but a tactical retreat

By Manolo De Los Santos The early morning hours of January 3, 2026, marked an inflection point in Venezuela and Latin America’s centuries-long struggle for self-determination and independence. Operation Absolute Resolve, ordered by the Trump administration, constituted the most brutal and direct military assault on a sovereign state in the region in recent memory. In a shocking operation that left hundreds dead, President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores were illegally kidnapped from Venezuelan soil and transported to the United States, where they now face fabricated charges in a New York federal detention facility. In the two months since this act of war, a torrent of speculation has emerged from so-called experts and pundits across the political spectrum. This has followed three main lines: One . The operation’s success indicated treason at the highest levels of the Bolivarian Revolution. Two . Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and the remaining leadership have abandone...

Search This Blog