Sustainable Management Of Archaeologically Important Monuments: A Case Study Of Indira Sagar Project (1000 MW) And Omkareshwar Project (520 MW) M.P., India

摘要

Indira Sagar Project and Omkareshwar Project are ambitious multipurpose project on Narmada River. The projects would generate 1000 MW and 520 MW respectively 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 and 1.47 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 these reservoir creation, 91348 ha and 9336 ha of land would be submerged affecting 249 and 30 villages in Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar project respectively. Narmada River is the west flowing river having its origin in Amarkantak in M.P (Annex-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 and Omkareshwar Project is currently underway. The Power component (Dam & Power Houses) of the Projects is being constructed by NHDC Ltd. (A Joint Venture of NHPC & Govt. of Madhya Pradesh). In the present paper an attempt has been made to highlight the various efforts being made to translocate/restore/retrieve the archaeological wealth available scattered in the submergence area of the projects scientifically. The construction programme is scheduled in such a way that no monument comes under submergence before it is properly translocated/restored.