Express News Service, September 29, 2006
Gandhinagar: WITH the monsoon over, the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (SSNNL) will resume work at the multi-crore Narmada dam from October 2. The work at dam height of 119 metres had been suspended since July 18 due to rains.
SSNNL Director (Civil) A B Mandavia on Friday said before resuming the actual construction work at the dam, a massive operation of cleaning up the silt and mud collected on its top would be undertaken. The flood waters during the monsoon have caused a huge chunk of silt and mud lying spread over the 29 blocks of the dam, and it would take at least 10 days from October 2 to complete the cleaning operation.
Mandavia said that after this operation was over, the construction work would resume to take the dam height from the present 119 metres to 121.92 metres. The construction work up to 121.92 metres is scheduled to be completed by December end.
After that the work on erecting piers between all the blocks of the dam begins, the SSNNL official said that the riverbed and canal head power units will generate about 1,000 MW of electricity due to a good quantum of water received during the monsoon.
SSNNL chairman P K Laheri said that with the departure of monsoon, the civil work on the Narmada main canal, its branches and distributaries across the State would begin from October 2 which coincides with Dussehra and Gandhi Jayanti.
The work on the 450 km long main canal will be completed up to the Gujarat-Rajasthan border by December and the Narmada water is expected to reach Rajasthan by then.
Laheri said of the 18 lakh farmers that will get irrigation facility under the dam project, about 2.75 lakh of them have already started getting it and plans are afoot to provide Narmada water to 6.5 lakh more ryots by June next year.
In fact, the civil work on 1,200 km long branch canals across the State is already completed, while the work on the remaining 900 kms of branch canals will begin soon, he said.

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