Activists vow not to give up fight against evictions as India’s biggest dam opened

MUMBAI: A day after the inauguration of India’s biggest dam, activists vowed to keep fighting for the tens of thousands of people displaced by the project to be resettled and compensated.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday dedicated the controversial Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada river to the people of India. The project will provide power and water to millions in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh states.
Ahead of the inauguration ceremony, protesters led by social activist Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) movement, stood in waist-deep Narmada water, demanding help for the some 40,000 families uprooted by the project.
“The dam may be complete, but the project is not complete, the resettlement and rehabilitation of people is not complete” said Madhuresh Kumar, an NBA campaigner.
“In the past, the inauguration of a project meant people were forgotten and left to fend for themselves. But where people have continued to fight, there have been victories, so we will continue to fight,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The Sardar Sarovar dam is the centerpiece of the multi-billion dollar Narmada Valley development project to provide water and power through a series of dams, reservoirs and canals.