A press release issued by the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) said here that the waters, after the dam wall was raised from 80.3 mts to 88 mts in the last three months -- after the Supreme Court lifted its stay of four years -- would submerge a few thousand houses and farms in about 60 villages. The displacement due to the submergence would not only be destructive but also unjust, the release added.

According to the NBA, on May 7, 1999, the Supreme Court fixed the height of the humps to be not more than three mts and in an order of February 18, the court also ordered rehabilitation of those affected by the new height as per the orders of the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal Award. However, the NBA claimed that these parts of the court order had been blatantly violated.

The release said that the 2,500 families likely to be affected this monsoons, as part of the satyagrah, have decided to stay put in their villages when the waters rise. On the condition of the Project Affected Persons, the NBA said that in Gujarat a few thousand families, claimed to have been resettled by the State government, were lying at the resettlement sites with uncultivable land and were facing problems of water, fodder and fuelwood shortage.