Dabhoi
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today dedicated to the nation the Sardar Sarovar Dam, which he called “an engineering marvel”. The dam on the Narmada took 56 years to be completed.

“No project in the world, perhaps, has faced so many controversies as the Narmada project,” he said, accusing “so-called” environmentalists the world over of creating hurdles. “But it was the determination of the people of Gujarat and the cooperation of one and all that ensured the completion of the project, conceived by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in 1946,” he said.

The PM steered away from any political controversy, leaving the task to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who sought to make it an “anti-Congress” convention, blaming the party for the “inordinate delay” and giving credit to Modi, first as the CM and now as the PM, for taking the Sardar Sarovar project forward.

Claiming that there could not have been a better way of celebrating his 67th birthday, Modi said: “It will be my biggest birthday gift that millions of farmers who will now get water for irrigation, crores of mothers who will now be spared of walking for miles to fetch drinking water, and the mute animals who will get green grass to eat, will bestow blessings on me.”

Naming “two great personalities” Sardar Patel and Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Modi said had these visionaries lived a few years longer, the Narmada project would have been completed in the Sixties or early Seventies. He refrained from naming Jawaharlal Nehru who laid the foundation stone in 1961.

“We were determined to complete the project,” Modi said at a rally some 55 km from the dam site in Dabhoi town of Vadodara district.