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Modern India's most ambitious project - 64KM DAM

What is the Kalpasar project? It involves building a giant 64km dam across the Gulf of Khambhat, (it was called the Gulf of Cambay) from Ghogha in Bhavnagar district to Hansot in Bharuch district.

It is an extraordinary project that involves building a 64 km dam and turning a part of the Arabian Sea into a freshwater lake. It will take at least 20 years to build and if it ever gets off the ground, it will cost around Rs 50,000 crore (Rs 500 billion).

The mind-boggling figures and the complexity of the task ahead aren't stopping the Gujarat Government. Last month the state Government took one step closer to turning the ambitious-beyond-belief Kalpasar project into larger-than-life reality.

That will trap the water from 12 rivers that flow into the gulf -- including big ones like the Narmada, the Mahi, the Sabarmati and the Dhadar -- and create a huge freshwater lake.

The Kalpasar reservoir will be 2,000 sq km which will be 50 times bigger than the existing Bhadar Reservoir in Rajkot. It will store more water than all existing major, medium and minor dams in the state.

It will store three times the water in the Sardar Sarovar reservoir. Importantly, the government says that hardly anyone will be displaced from their homes, unlike the Sardar Sarovar project.

The giant lake can be harnessed in lots of different ways. It will be able to generate 5,880MW of tidal power. Most importantly, it will solve the state's acute water problem for a long time to come.

Travelling along a 660 km network of canals, it will provide around 5,61 million cubic metre of water annually to irrigate 1,054,500 hectares of land of Southern Saurashtra, where water is a scarce commodity.

Besides that it will provide 900 million cubic metres of water for domestic usage and 500 million cubic metres of water for the industrial development of Saurashtra and Kutch.

There will be other benefits. Haskoning, an international company that carried out a survey on the project, has suggested that a multi-lane highway and a railway line should be built across the length of the dam.

That would slash the distance between South Gujarat and Mumbai and also Saurashtra by about 225 km.

The freshwater lake and its rising water levels will probably make it possible to build more ports in the region -- there are even suggestions that as many as three or four new ports could be built.

Also, it will be possible to improve existing ports like Ghogha and Bhavnagar because of the higher water levels. Also, the Government believes that fish could be introduced into the freshwater lake and that this alone could generate an income of Rs 68 crore (Rs 680 million).

If all that isn't enough, the Government reckons it will be able to reclaim 1,100 square kilometres of saline land along the coast that is currently unfit for cultivation. Once the dam is built the salinity levels will decline.

There's still a long way to go before the first brick is put in place. But, let's step back and see how this super-ambitious project has even come this far. It was the brainchild of Anil Kane, a former Vice-Chancellor of MS University, Vadodara who first came up with it 18 years ago.

Modern India's most ambitious project

Unbelievable isn't it. This certainly looks like a mad man's dream at first instance. Well most of the genius people who redefined the world are treated as mad men. And lets hope this genius , Kane, can redefine water logging history in the history of India. If this thing becomes successful, similar kind of projects will come up across. Well, what I think is linking all rivers of India is most promising project with more benefits to more number of states/people than making this fresh water lake by building that huge dam across the sea.

What you say?