RTI exposes Barvi holes

See also: How to kill an eco-system

An RTI query by South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) to the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) has shown that there are several irregularities with the on-going project of raising the height of the Barvi river.

A year ago, DNA had reported on how the height of the river at Badlapur, 90km from Mumbai was being raised for the fourth time displacing resettled villagers yet again.
The MIDC reply shows that while the tender for the latest height

increase was signed in 1998 and work was begun in 1999, forest clearance was obtained only in 2005. “This is a blatant violation of the Forests Act,” points out says Parineeta Deshpande-Dandekar of SANDRP.

MIDC claims the annual inflow in the reservoir even at 75% is 277 million cubic metres (MCM), while due to the latest height increase the storage will be 338.84 MCM. “It is clear that the reservoir won’t be filled even at 75% dependability and never at 90% dependability.

This also shows the reservoir capacity is unviable. Public funds are being spent and thousands are being displaced for a reservoir which will never fill to its built capacity,” says Deshpande-Dandekar. “The silt has anyway reduced the capacity of the existing dam by a third.”

Though augmenting water storage capacity could well be achieved by desilting, this is an option that has never been explored. The reply to the RTI query admits no silt survey has been done. Villagers on the banks have already told DNA how huge mounds of silt do not submerge even when the dam is full in the tail-end of the monsoon. (See pic)

The dam which was built in 1973, originally 38.10 m high, displaced around 2,000 people from seven villages and submerged over 4,750 acres of dense forests. The reply to the RTI query however says, “MIDC has no information about the villages submerged in the first submergence. Though 3,639 hectares of government, forest and private land had been submerged in the first and second height increase, there was no displacement during the subsequent height increase.”