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NBA wants Centre to consider global body report by Sudhir K Singh, The Times of India - 26 November 2000 NBA wants Centre to consider global body reportBy Sudhir K Singh The Times of India News Service BHOPAL: The Narmada Bacahao Andolan (NBA) has requested the Centre to accept the conclusions and recommendations of the World Commission of Dams whose recent report, it claims, has again raised serious questions on the long-term social, economic, and environmental impact of large dams the world over. The report was released in London on November 16. Briefing mediapersons in the state capital on Saturday, NBA representatives said the WCD document had suggested that the supposed benefits of the projects like Sardar Sarovar be reevaluated and other options for providing water and energy be explored with the help of all stakeholders. Special emphasis has been laid on the need to discourage building dams without the consent or acceptance of those affected. A special box item in the report on Sardar Sarovar points out that the 41,000 families (or 2,05,000 people) likely to lose their livelihood does not include 1,57,000 others who could fall prey to canal/powerhouse displacement. "Nor does it include those moved to make space for the creation of a wildlife sanctuary .... or the 900 families displaced in the early 1960s to make room for the construction site infrastructure." Displacement, the report warns, can make the position of women inside and outside the family more precarious. Resettlement sites at Sardar Sarovar, Kariba (Zambia) and Nangbeto (Togo-Benin) reported a marked rise in alcoholism and domestic violence. "As men face powerlessness, women (and children) become scapegoats." The need of the hour was thus to clamp a complete moratorium on all big dams in India like Sardar Sarovar, Maheshwar, and Narmada Sagar, the NBA stressed. The WCD report was commissioned in April 1997 by both critics and proponents of big dams, including the World Bank. NBA chief Medha Patkar was among its 11-member team of commissioners. The report, the spokespersons claimed, had concluded that large dams had failed to produce as much electricity, provide as much water, or control as much floods as originally claimed. Most had suffered massive cost overruns and delays and caused untold social and environmental damage. That reservoirs could be significant emitters of greenhouse gases was also confirmed along with the impression that the benefits of large dams had largely gone to the well-off leaving the poor to suffer the harmful side-effects. The NBA also accused its opponents of spreading false and malicious propaganda that it was being funded through hawala channels, and compromising national security by colluding with foreign interests. Such idle chatter would, however, not deter them from taking up issues like the high cost of power or the lack of adequate rehabilitation measures at Maheshwar and elsewhere. In this connection the spokesperson informed that the NBA would be filing criminal defamatory cases against two well-known newspapers for publishing an advertisement sponsored by the so-called National Council of Civil Liberties which sought to belittle Medha Patkar and other NBA activists.
Copyright © 1999, 2000 The World Commission on Dams | ||||||||||||||||||||||
