Since its foundation stone laying ceremony conducted around 55 years back, the Gujarat Government has spent near Rs47,000 crore for Sardar Sarovar Dam being constructed on River Narmada, said Gujarat Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama in the House during ongoing Budget Session of the Gujarat Assembly. Chudasama also admitted that despite expenditure of such a mammoth amount, construction of the canal work is yet to be completed. “Canal network of more than 48,000 km is yet to be constructed,” the Minister added. He was speaking on behalf of Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, who has kept the Narmada Project department with her. Giving details about the expenditure incurred by the State Government, he said that of the total expenditure, nearly Rs5,777 crore has been spent on the Saradar Sarovar Dam, Rs6,400 crore for Narmada main canal and Rs17,000 crore for the branch canal network. He further said that canals of 48,266 km in length are yet to be constructed, including 214.3 km of branch canals, 1590.7 km of distributaries, 8656.7 km of minor canals and 27,804.7 km of sub-minor canals. “Work is going on for the completion of the canal network and the current State Government is determined to complete the work as soon as possible,” he said while replying to the query of Congress MLA Punja Vansh. On Gujarat’s outstanding amount to be recovered from neighbouring States, Chudasama said that nearly Rs5,425 crore is yet to be recovered under the Narmada Projects from beneficiary States including Rs1,373 crore from Maharashtra, Rs506 crore from Rajasthan and Rs3,548 crore from Madhya Pradesh. The foundation stone of the dam was laid by the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru on April 5th 1961. However, in 1964 the dispute for sharing of Narmada water arose between Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh and an expert committee was appointed by the Central Government. Based on the committee’s report, Narmada Water Dispute Tribunal (NWDT) was constituted in 1969. Since then, the work of dam work initiated but progressed at a very slow pace. Many NGOs including Medha Patkar headed Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) was against the project and they also resorted to legal options in order to protest the construction of the dam. As a result, the project took such a prolonged time. Amid plethora of disputes, Narmada Control Authority (NCA) was setup in December 1980 under the final orders and decision of the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (NWDT) as machinery for implementation of its directions and decision. NCA was formed with representatives of the four States - Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan and is headed by Secretary, Government of India (GOI), who is the ex-officio chairman of the authority. It was in 2006 that the NCA had allowed the dam height to be raised up to 121.92 meters. The full reservoir level is 138.68 meters. 17 days after Narendra Modi took over as the Prime Minister, NCA gave clearance to raise the height of the dam for further 17 meters.