Anti-dam protesters and villagers have vowed to fight a two-to-one decision in India's Supreme Court allowing work to continue on the controversial, half-finished Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada River in the western state of Gujarat.
Medha Patkar, the leader of the Narmada Bachao Andolan, which has opposed the dam for years, said she would fight the decision "tooth and nail". She said the decision "provided a weapon in the hands of the power holders to indiscriminately displace the project-affected people and crush their rights".
Patkar's group had filed a lawsuit with the court alleging the dam's impact studies were incomplete and environmental and other conditions were unfulfilled and asking for a halt to construction. But the court rejected the argument, instead allowing dam waters to be raised a further two metres to 90 metres.
The Sardar Sarovar Dam, when completed, will be the second largest in the world. Dam waters will inundate 37,000 hectares of forest and farmland, and displace between 200,000 and 300,000 villagers, many of them indigenous people living in extreme poverty. Many thousands have already been displaced but have received little by way of compensation.
The Supreme Court's decision is the first to raise the water levels since an April 1999 ruling allowing it to rise from 80 metres to 88 metres.
That decision prompted months of protests, both in the remote regions along the river and in India's major cities. These culminated in August 1999 when hundreds of villagers had to be dragged from their inundated houses by police as the floodwaters rose.
The Narmada Bachao Andolan has promised similar actions this time around.
BY SEAN HEALY