ABSTRACT
The cost-benefit analyses undertaken in the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) are scrutinised to show how the demonstration of goodness through a 'number' is based on a method that tends to hide more than it reveals. In the SSP, cost-benefit appraisals were carried out by three different agencies-the Narmada Planning Group, Irrigation Department, Government of Gujarat in 1983; Tata Economic Consultancy Services in 1983; and the World Bank in 1985. The major benefits of the SSP estimated in the 1983-85 appraisals are irrigation, hydropower generation, and municipal and industrial water supply. The Bank's environmental appraisal of 1985 mentioned both negative and positive effects of environmental 'changes' in the SSP. The sensitivity analysis in the SSP was conducted given a number of assumptions made in the project appraisal about yields, prices, physical parameters related to the implementation period and project costs, and the possible delay in construction of the major upstream regulation facility.
