Narmada Hydroelectric Development Corporation Ltd., Bhopal
Indira Sagar project is a ambitious multipurpose project on Narmada river. The projects would generate 1000 MW of hydel power to meet the ever-increasing demands for electricity in Madhya Pradesh. The irrigation potential would be of the order of 1.69 lac ha annually. The biggest ever man made lake will be created (913 sq km) to hold about 12 billion cubic metre of water storage in the reservoir of Indira Sagar project. As a result of this reservoir creation, 91348 ha of land would be submerged affecting 249 villages in Indira Sagar project. Narmada river is the west flowing river having its origin in Amarkantak in MP (Annexure-I). All old civilisations flourished near the banks of perennial rivers of which remains are found. The Narmada valley is no exception and as such the valley is very rich in archaeologically important wealth. The Archaeological Monuments are thus required to be saved from permanent submergence as also the important mounds are to be excavated for further collection of knowledge about historic value buried under earth before the large tracts of such location gets submerged. An ambitious programme of salvaging the heritage getting affected due to construction of Indira Sagar project is currently underway. The Power component (dam and power houses) of the projects is being constructed by NHDC Ltd. (A Joint Venture of NHPC and Govt. of Madhya Pradesh).
In the present paper an attempt has been made to highlight the various efforts made to translocate/restore/retrieve the archaeological wealth available scattered in the submergence area of the project scientifically.
The construction programme is scheduled in such a way that no monument comes under submergence before it is properly translocated/restored.
