Dam height: Gujarat refutes MP's claim

By Our Special Correspondent

GANDHINAGAR, JUNE 14. The Gujarat chief minister, Mr. Keshubhai Patel, today repudiated the statement of his Madhya Pradesh counterpart, Mr. Digvijay Singh that his Government was not opposed to the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River if Gujarat accepted the dam height at 436 feet, 19 feet lower than the tribunal's award.

Reacting to Mr. Singh's statement to this effect in Rajkot, where he had come to see the developments made in the construction of checkdams in Gujarat yesterday, Mr. Patel told mediapersons here today that the M. P. Chief Minister had lost credibility after he went back on the assurance given Mr. Suresh Mehta, the then Chief Minister.

Mr. Patel pointed out that an agreement was reached at a meeting of the concerned Chief Ministers convened by the then Prime Minister, Mr. H. D. Deve Gowda. Under this the height of the dam would be taken up to 436 feet after which a study on the flow of water in the river would be made for five years. The then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Mehta agreed that if the study proved the M.P. Government's claim of reduction in the water flow in the river proved right, Gujarat would stop construction. Otherwise the M.P. Government would agree to take the height to the level suggested by the tribunal.

But the M.P. Government went back on the agreement immediately by filing a petition in the Supreme Court arguing for a reduction in the dam height virtually siding with the Narmada Bachao Andolan. ``Mr. Singh has lost all the credibility and has no right to talk about 436 feet since he is not even agreeing to take the height up to 350 feet when the water will start flowing into the canals,'' Mr. Patel regretted.

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