India’s Minister of Water Resources, Dr CP Thakur, made a case in favour of large dams on 9 December 1999, at a seminar on the advantages and disadvantages of large dams. Thakur expressed support for the construction of big dams, particularly the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam in the Gujarat State.
He said the early completion of this dam would be a ‘service to the nation’, and that ‘if all goes well, we will try to complete it in two years’. If it had been completed four years ago, it may have brought the same prosperity to Gujarat as the Bhakra dam has done in the states of Punjab and Haryana, he added.