ABSTRACT
The recurring traumas of famines and floods, the need for irrigation to bring about self-sufficiency in food, and the need for electricity to support India's industrial infrastructure, have provided a tremendous impetus for the construction of dams. In purely economic terms too, the costs and benefits of the big dams have left much to be desired. Over the years, the size of the dams has become bigger and bigger - and the financial, environmental and social costs have become correspondingly greater and greater. All these moves have largely been aimed at securing better benefits for displaced people, but have not questioned the rationale for the very existence of these massive dams. Key decision-makers in the government were convinced of the importance of saving Silent Valley - of keeping the options open till a future date, when all other power-generating options in Kerala had been exhausted.
