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Mumbai: Thousands of people were evacuated in Gujarat following a 10-metre breach in the 458km long Narmada canal.
Anti-big dam activists have blamed the major breach in the canal in Mehsana district as a result of poor construction quality and lack of environmental assessment of the command area.
Sujatpura and several villages of the Kadi administrative block were flooded following the breach on Wednesday though no casualties were reported. The worst affected were farmers who have suffered huge losses. Water has now started receding.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the site, has ordered a technical probe into the breach. The state government will also undertake a survey of the entire canal from the dam site of Sardar Sarovar Project in Kevadia Colony of Broach district to the Rajasthan border. The government wants to ensure there is no recurrence of such incidents in the future. It said it would also take action if any criminal negligence of duty is found against anyone.
Meanwhile, Medha Patkar of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save Narmada Movement), an anti-big dam NGO, says, "This is the at least the third time that the main canal is breaking showing the huge corruption and callousness in the construction of the canal, which was speeded up for political mileage." The contractor-bureaucrat-politician nexus is responsible for this calamity, she says.
Patkar also adds how in August 2004 the Narmada canal was severely breached in two places as flood waters coming from the Heran River crashed through the main canal to submerge villages. And in another incident, a breach occurred near Kadi area sending water into ten villages in Viramgam and Dholka blocks and forcing the evacuation of 2,000 people. The flooding was the result of a burst check dam on the canal following heavy rains.
"Along with people of Kevadia Colony, who are about to be ... forced out of their habitat, we pledge solidarity with the affected people of Mehsana and demand relief," says Patkar.
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