Case Description

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Water Features:	Narmada River, Narmada River Basin
Geolocation:	22° 24' 44.2148", 71° 3' 52.6813"
Total Population	16.216,200,000 millionmillion
Total Area	98,79698,796 km² 38,145.136 mi² km²
Climate Descriptors	Semi-arid/steppe (Köppen B-type), Arid/desert (Köppen B-type), Monsoon, temperate
Predominent Land Use Descriptors	agricultural- cropland and pasture, conservation lands, industrial use, forest land, religious/cultural sites
Important Uses of Water	Agriculture or Irrigation, Domestic/Urban Supply, Hydropower Generation, Industry - consumptive use, Livestock
Riparians:	India, Indigenous Population
Water Projects:	Sardar Sarovar Dam
Agreements:	Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award, Interstate River Water Disputes Act

Summary

The Narmada River is the fifth longest river in the Indian subcontinent, and one of the five holy rivers of India. Plans to develop the river for irrigation and hydropower have been discussed for over a century. It was only after India’s independence from Great Britain in 1947 that plans began to take shape, thanks to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s aggressive development agenda. Flowing 1,312 kilometers through three states in Central and Western India, Gujarat, Maharastrha, and Madhya Pradesh, the Narmada basin now boasts over 3000 dams, a “giant staircase of reservoirs.” The largest of these dams, the Sardar Sarovar, also boasts of causing a protracted conflict starting shortly after Indian independence and continuing through the present day, involving countless government agencies, decades of negotiations between four states, one of the largest people’s mobilizations in India’s history, pressure from international environmental organizations and governments, the World Bank, multiple supreme court cases, and tens (or by some counts, hundreds) of thousands of people displaced. As of May 2014, the construction of the dam is still not complete, so this list of actors could potentially grow.

The conflict began as an interstate issue over the right of the state of Gujarat to raise the height of a dam on its portion of the Narmada River, creating a submergence area that would impact plans for hydropower development in co-riparian states Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The central government of India intervened, establishing the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal, which allocated shares of water and power from the dam between the three states and an extremely arid non-riparian state, Rajasthan, according to estimates of river flows and hydropower potential based on its own study. The Tribunal’s award also established minimum requirements for rehabilitation and resettlement of “Project-Affected Persons,” based on its study’s estimates of the dam’s submergence area and the number of land-owning families living in those areas. This initial, binding decision was made by a three-judge panel, and did not involve participation by representatives of the four states involved, nor did it include any efforts to consult with communities whose villages would be submerged, over half of which were Adivasis (indigenous Indians) who are subject to special protections in the Indian constitution.

In the mid 1980s, when the World Bank agreed to finance the project before an environmental impact assessment was conducted, communities scheduled to be submerged by the dam construction organized themselves into the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), a coalition of farmers, Adivasis, and activists. The NBA successfully mobilized the interest of international environmental organizations, which prompted the World Bank to conduct an independent review of the project and eventually withdraw based on issues surrounding environmental impacts and inadequate resettlement and rehabilitation. The project has continued to this day, financed by the Indian central government and individual states, and the NBA continues to be active in national politics and advocate for just compensation.

Natural, Historic, Economic, Regional, and Political Framework

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