An Indian panel has called for work on increasing the height of a controversial dam to be halted as people already displaced by the project have not been properly rehabilitated, a government minister said on Saturday.
The six-member body, comprising chief ministers from affected states and federal officials, was set up to review plans to raise the Sardar Sarovar in western India after protests from farmers.
They have lost their homes and fields as water levels have risen, and together with those threatened by plans to raise the dam by a further 12 metres to 122 metres (133 yards) are demanding compensation and suitable replacement land.
India's federal water resources minister, Saifuddin Soz, said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should now halt work while a deal is worked out.
A meeting of the panel ended in a tie with the chief ministers of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan opposing the move to suspend work, while the federal environment minister and the Maharashtra chief minister backing the stop work call.
"As the chairman of the review committee, I have recommended to suspend the project (raising the height of the dam) to the prime minister," Soz told reporters after the meeting.
"I am witness to the fact that in Madhya Pradesh rehabilitation has not been satisfactory," he said, talking about people already forced to leave their homes as earlier phases of the project were completed.
Indian authorities began work last month to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar, the biggest dam in the multi-billion dollar Narmada Valley development project.
But they ran into stiff opposition, led by environmental activist Medha Patkar, who has spearheaded a 20-year campaign to protect hundreds of thousands of poor farmers whose homes and fields have been submerged, or are now threatened by plans to raise the dam.
In late March, Patkar, 52, began a hunger strike that has now lasted for nearly 20 days. She was moved from a makeshift protest site in central Delhi to a leading hospital recently.
Supporters of the dam have fought back with full page advertisements in leading newspapers claiming the backing of leading business figures, and calling for the work to continue as it will supply much needed water and power to western states.
"Let the nation progress," the advertisement says.
The Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement) is India's most celebrated environmental campaign, but seemed to have faded from the national consciousness until Patkar began her most Indian form of protest.
She says that if the dam's height is raised, more than 35,000 families, most of them impoverished tribal farmers, could have their homes and fields submerged when the monsoon rains arrive in June and are still waiting to be resettled.
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