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World Needs 45,000 More Large Dams - ICID Maharashtra Times, India - 22 February 2001 " World Needs 45,000 more large dams: World Bank Should Reject WCD Report" - Bert Schultz, ICIDDr. Bert Schultz, the Director General of ICID ( International Commission of Irrigation ) in an interview to Maharashtra Times ( Mumbai, 22.2.01) by Sudhir Bhongale, has said that " It is ridiculous to suggest that the big dam should be planned only after consensus ( among stakeholders?). As of today, it takes 10 to 20 years to undertake a major project and 30-40 years to complete the construction on that. If the criterion and guiding principles of the WCD are to be implemened, (a) dam cannot be completed even in hundred years. According to us, there is no alternative for the large dams." " Structural and non-structural alternatives should go hand-in-hand. People will become destitute if water is not provided. Can we see with eyes open the migration for water?" "Today, there are 20 countries building the large dams. Out of them only 8-10 are building the dams in reality(sic). There is a need to build large dams in the coutries like India, China, Japan, Spain, Turkey, African and Latin American countries. There are 45,000 large dams in the world. Equal number of dams will ahve to be built in the next hundred years. Otherwise, we will have difficult situation regarding the food-grains, drinking water, power and industry etc. India will have to produce 200 million tonnes more foodgrains in the next 25-30 years. Therefore India will have to build 8,000 to10,000 more large dams. This is the opinion of Mr. Raymond Lofty(?) of Switzerland, which cannot be ignored." " We in ICID, International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD) and International Hydropower Organization (IHP) are marshalling our arguments against the weak links in the WCD report. Though the World bank has very little share of financing the large dams, it has considerable influence on the other agencies. Therefore, we are going to present the report giving real picture regarding the development by large dams ( so that) the World bank should not take a negative stand. The governments in all countries are intelligent enough. Therefore I have no doubt that they would reject this report. I hope that the World bank too would reject the WCD report." " WCD should have discussed with the fgovernments of the nations that need to build the large dams. They (WCD) did not discuss with any of the government." " I was the member of the Forum of the WCD in the capacity of the ICID President. Not one of the 68 members of the Forum could get the Report before its publication. ICID had established a study group, in a meeting in 1998, to prepare a position paper to be presented for the WCD. The position paper was approved by 41 out of 43 member states. We had submitted the paper to WCD in January, 2000. But they had not given any answer to it(sic). I was given only five minutes to present the viewpoint of my organization in the meeting of the Forum. They did not hear fully what we wnated to say." (Translated from Marathi).
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