Slow work on Narmada dam might aggravate Guj water scarcity

Out of the total 74,626 km canal network of Narmada dam, the work completed so far is of just 19,885 km which comes to about 27 per cent of the total work, officials said.

The total amount spend so far by the state on the Narmada dam and canal network project is Rs 24,022 crore.

Narmada being a perennial river, harnessing of its water by building a huge dam and distributing it to through canal network for drinking and irrigational purposes is a lifeline project of the state for water, where scarcity of water due to deficient rains has been the norm.

Already the local municipal corporation in the main city of Saurashtra--Rajkot-- has announced water supply cuts, and now people are provided water for 15 minutes on alternate days. More than 220 villages of Saurashtra are provided water by tankers.

The state government has also announced that it has decided to reserve the water present in reservoirs of Saurashtra and Kutch for drinking purpose only.

Gujarat this monsoon has received 50 per cent deficient rains and especially in scarcity prone areas of the state like Saurashtra and Kutch the deficiency of the rains is very high as the region has just received less than 25 per cent rains.

"Instead of playing politics over the issue of Narmada dam project the state government should expedite the work of Narmada canal network, so that lakhs of people of Gujarat can get drinking water and farmers can get water for irrigation," Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.

Gujarat water resources minister Nitin Patel had recently blamed the Congress government at the Centre for not allowing the increase in the height of the dam from 121.92m to 146.5m. MORE