Place · dam & reservoir · India
Sardar Sarovar Dam
/səɾdaːɾ səɾoːʋəɾ/
Also known as Sardar Sarovar Project, Narmada dam, SSP, Narmada Valley Development Project
A large gravity dam on the lower Narmada in Gujarat, the central structure of the Narmada Valley Development Project. Planned from the 1940s, begun in 1987 and inaugurated at full height in 2017, it supplies irrigation and drinking water to Gujarat and Rajasthan and power shared between three states. Its reservoir submerged villages across Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, displacing a population that was disproportionately Adivasi.
- Periods
- Republic and Living Practice
- Function
- Water & infrastructure
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 21.830, 73.750
Worth knowing
The World Bank withdrew from the project in 1993 after an independent review criticised its resettlement provisions. Litigation over the dam's height ran through the Supreme Court for years. Shrines and settlements along the Shoolpaneshwar stretch of the parikrama route were among the sites lost, and pilgrims now walk a reshaped shoreline.
Connections (1)
- Site adjacencyShoolpaneshwar
The original Shoolpaneshwar shrine, in the difficult forested Bhil country where parikrama pilgrims traditionally surrendered their possessions to be robbed and let through, was submerged by the Sardar Sarovar reservoir and relocated. The displacement of Adivasi villages across this reach drove the Narmada Bachao Andolan under Medha Patkar, one of the longest-running resistance movements in independent India, and the stretch is now as much a political landscape as a sacred one.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Sardar Sarovar Dam”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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