Accepted Papers - 3.pdf - UNESCO

along the reservoir rim could be charged to the cost
of the reservoir project.
Supreme Court in their judgement in PIL filed
by NBA expressed its deep concern that against the
utilisable storage 690 cu. km. of surface water
resources out of 1869 cu. km.; so far storage capacity
of all dams in India is only 174 cu. km., which is
incidentally less than the capacity of Kariba Dam in
Zambia/Zimbabwe with capacity of 180.6 cu. km.
and only 12 cu. km. more than the Aswan High Dam
of Egypt. Supreme Court observed that the Public
Interest Litigation (PIL) is ballooning and can’t
be allowed to burst. The lords in majority
judgment stated that that PILs cannot be
allowed to degenerate into “Publicity Interest
Litigation” nor “Private Inquisitiveness
Litigation”. Supreme Court very clearly observed
that with channelisation of development, ecology
& environment gets enhanced and that biggest
dam to smallest structures are water harvesting
structures. Supreme Court ruled that “Dam is
neither nuclear establishment nor an industry.
Since long, India has derived benefits of river
valley projects. High dam decision can’t be
faulted. Large dams upgrade ecology”.
Environment is either science or engineering,
which can not be so well understood by novelists,
journalists and self styled activists. Such persons
repeatedly use media to create fantasies since they
have excellent command on language, media
relationship and have nothing else to do except whole
hearted full time tirade against water storage
projects, on many shifting grounds. In every sector
other than water and power, specialists like
doctors, surgeons, economists, space & atomic
scientists etc. are considered competent but any
‘Tom’, ‘Dick’ and ‘Harry’ claims to be expert to
oppose large dams, hydel projects and inter-basin
transfer of water projects. Supreme Court’s
admission of PIL by NCCL against NBA and Prime
Minister’s direction for vigilance inquiries due to
siphoning of foreign funds and over 200 FIRs for
stopping R&R works are now matter of media
coverage.Adequate laws & Governing mechanism
should be quickly evolved so that such non
credible NGOs & self styled environmentalists
are no longer allowed to create obstacles in
national task of water and power supply for
competing uses for such a vast humanity.
Note- Views in the article do not belong to the Author’s
Organisations. Valuable publications used for reference are
cited below for further reading.
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