When cleared by the Planning Commission in 1988, ssp was to cost Rs 6,406 crore. By 2000, delays spiralled the cost to Rs 9,000 crore. Gujarat’s share of the cost jumped from Rs 4,904 crore to Rs 6,800 crore. The full cost, including the canals and interest payments will be around Rs 30,000 crore.

P K Laheri, cmd of Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (ssnnl, the executive arm of the project in Gujarat), says, “Rs 21,000 crore has been spent on the project by April 2006. While Rs 13,000 crore has gone on the dam and its distribution network, the remaining is for debt servicing.” In short, debt service has cost the state Rs 8,000 crore till date; a dismal arrangement, given the budgetary allocation for the ssp of Rs 900 crore in both 2003-2004 and 2004-2005.

In 1990, the state borrowed from the market (bonds and public deposit collections), raising an estimated Rs 10,000 crore. Arjunbhai Modhvadia, leader of the opposition in the assembly, says, “Even without the dam reaching the desired height, the state is losing Rs 2.2 crore per day on interest.” He points out that Gujarat is the third most indebted state.

ssp has also been eating into public funds. Gujarat has cornered a lion’s share of the Union government’s Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme. It got 24 per cent (Rs 4,315 crore) of the total Rs 18,157 crore disbursed by the Centre between 1996 and 2006. Of Rs 4,315 crore, Gujarat spent 80-91 per cent on ssp. The project was designed as a business model. Money was to be recovered through the supply of water and power. In 1990, it was estimated that income from irrigation and power would start flowing in from 1995-1996; by 2000, recoveries would be Rs 371 crore. The former didn’t happen, and cost recovery is next to nothing.

The 1979 tribunal award gave Gujarat 9 million acre feet (maf) of the overall water availability of 28 mag at the maximum dam height of 138 metre. Of this 0.86 maf was earmarked for domestic and municipal use in 135 towns and 8,215 villages, and 0.2 maf for industry. The rest would irrigate about 1.8 million ha in 3,112 villages of 73 talukas. Even this allocation has not been reached, because the delivery systems have not been built.

Laheri attributes delays and debt-servicing to the anti-dam movement; the comptroller and auditor general (cag) thinks otherwise. Its 2004-2005 report slammed the state; it had mismanaged the physical and financial planning of the drinking water scheme. cag also blamed lack of coordination among different agencies for the lag on the Narmada Canal Based Bulk Water Transmission Project, a drinking water project for towns and villages, slated for completion in 2002. cag’s 2003 and 2005 reports also pointed out wasteful expenditure in pumping water from ssp in 2000-2001 and then in 2003.

With such a huge financial drain, will Gujarat have the funds to complete the project? “This is an emotional issue, and the government will find resources from all possible quarters,” says Digant Oza, a journalist and activist in Ahmedabad. Says A S Bharati, director, command area development, ssnnl: “The plan is to complete the canal network by 2009-2010. Meeting this deadline will require Rs 7,000 crore over and above the cost of the main canal.

All about diversion
The drama over increasing the dam’s height has hidden the fact that the irrigation network is way behind schedule. Officialdom attributes the delay in completion of the main canal to cement shortage. But it is believed this is deliberate