Sardar Sarovar Dam

Sardar Sarovar Dam is the second-largest concrete gravity dam in India and the third-largest dam in the country by volume of concrete. Spanning the Narmada River at Kevadia (near the Statue of Unity) in Gujarat, the dam was finally dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister Modi on 17 September 2017 — 56 years after the foundation stone was first laid by Jawaharlal Nehru in 1961.

The project was conceived as the keystone of the Narmada Valley Development Project (NVDP), serving four states: Gujarat (irrigation + drinking water + power), Madhya Pradesh (power + flood control), Maharashtra (power + minor irrigation), and Rajasthan (drinking water). The dam impounds a reservoir of 9.5 cubic km — sufficient to irrigate 1.8 million hectares of farmland in Gujarat's drought-prone belt and supply drinking water to 9,000 villages.

Construction was beset by political controversy from the 1980s onward — the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA), led by Medha Patkar, raised concerns about displacement of indigenous tribal communities (~300,000 people) and ecological impact. Multiple Supreme Court interventions delayed completion, with the dam's height being progressively raised in court-supervised stages from 110.6 m (1991) to its final 138.7 m (2017).

The spillway has 23 radial gates discharging up to 87,000 cumecs at full design flood. The associated Sardar Sarovar Power Project (1,450 MW total) feeds Gujarat, MP, and Maharashtra grids.