Narmada : Missed Opportunity

Missed Opportunity BY allowing the resumption of work on the Sardar Sarovar project, all that the Supreme Court has achieved is show its disinclination to play a pioneering role in setting precedents for facilitating the real involvement of people in development issues. The ruling, it may be recalled, was on a public interest litigation filed in 1955 by the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), which is spearheading the protest movement of people who will be dispossessed by the project. Construction work was suspended at the site when the hearings began. The court has now permitted the height of the dam to be raised from 80.3 metres to 85 metres. It has, however, constituted a grievance redressal committee under retired Supreme Court justice P D Desai to submit, before April 9, a report on the status of rehabilitation of the oustees resettled so far.