Skip to main content

Past 14 years, just 21% Gujarat's Narmada command area completed, irrigation waters "diverted" to industry

Narmada canal network: Progress in Gujarat
By Our Representative
Khedut Samaj – Gujarat (KSG), the upcoming farmers’ organization, has alleged “criminal conspiracy” of transferring Narmada waters to industry, instead of providing them to the state’s agricultural fields by developing Narmada canals. 
Claiming this is forcing farmers to “distress sale of land” and “suicide”, a KSG meet, held in Ahmedabad on January 18, 2016, has decided to go in for a massive awareness campaign in the Narmada command area.
Attended by farmer representatives of Mandal-Bhechraji Special Investment Region (SIR) and Dholera SIR, where massive land acquisition drive for industrial use has gone controversial, with plans to divert Narmada water to industry, the KSG, a non-political body, will be distributing pamphlets, paste posters, hold village meetings, and get Gram Sabhas, Gram Panchayats, Taluka Panchayats and District Panchayats pass resolutions demanding timetable for Narmada waters for irrigation.
Declaring that it would also hold taluka and district level sammelans in Narmada command areas, as also hold awareness yatras along the main and branch canals, a KSG statement issued following the meeting said that “the situation is becoming grim and the administration remains unresponsive to farmers’ demands, even protests through road blocks and fast-unto-deaths.”
To be held under the banner “Narmada water now, is non-negotiable”, the KSG said, “Low productivity of agriculture and the resultant low incomes are also the result of unavailability of irrigation.”
Pointing out that “irrigation to water scarce regions of Gujarat, viz. Bhal, Saurashtra and Kutch in the main, was the raison de etre of the Narmada dam”, KSG said, even 35 years after the award to go ahead with the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Project to provide water to 18 lakh hectares in Gujarat, farmers in the Narmada command area are not getting water.
Distribution of Narmada waters
“Fourteen years after the waters reached the Narmada main canal near Ahmedabad and 10 years after it reached Navada at Vallabhipur branch canal, the government has, purposefully, not completed the canal network, i.e. sub-minor canals, which are meant to take the water to the fields”, the top farmers’ body contended.
“As of last year, only 21 per cent of sub-minor canal network is in place, despite much of the infrastructure i.e. branch, distributaries being in place. It is part of a larger conspiracy against the agriculture sector to compel the farmers to abandon agriculture and migrate to the cities without any burden on government for their R&R; and this is no longer hidden from the farmers”, it underlined.
“The Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (NWDT) awarded 9 Million Acre Feet (MAF) of water to Gujarat. Of this, 7.94 MAF are meant to provide irrigation, 1.06 MAF are meant for drinking water (0.86 MAF) and industrial use (0.2 MAF). As against 18.45 lakh hectares of land in Gujarat (spread over 15 districts, 73 talukas and 3,112 villages) which had to receive Narmada waters, only 1,17,026 ha have been irrigated”, the KSG said.
“As against this dismal performance, the water allocation for industries has already exceeded the 0.20 MAF”, it said, adding, top Gujarat government official, Arvind Agarwal, additional chief secretary, industries and mines, has admitted that “the state has exceeded the allocation of Narmada water for industries. Of the total allocation of 0.20 MAF for industrial use, the state is already using 0.25 MAF.”

Comments

TRENDING

Importance of Bangladesh for India amidst 'growing might' of China in South Asia

By Samara Ashrat*  The basic key factor behind the geopolitical importance of Bangladesh is its geographical location. The country shares land borders with Myanmar and India. Due to its geographical position, Bangladesh is a natural link between South Asia and Southeast Asia.  The country is also a vital geopolitical ally to India, in that it has the potential to facilitate greater integration between Northeast India and Mainland India. Not only that, due to its open access to the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh has become significant to both China and the US.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

'BBC film shows only tip of iceberg': Sanjiv Bhatt's daughter speaks at top US press club

By Our Representative   The United States' premier journalists' organisation, the National Press Club (NPC), has come down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for recent "attacks on journalists in India." Speaking at the screening of an episode of the BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question,” banned in India, in the club premises, NPC President Eileen O’Reilly said, “Since Modi came to power we have watched with frustration and disappointment as his regime has suppressed the rights of its citizens to a free and independent news media."

Chinese pressure? Left stateless, Rohingya crisis result of Myanmar citizenship law

By Dr Shakuntala Bhabani*  A 22-member team of Myanmar immigration officials visited Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar to verify more than 400 Rohingya refugees as part of a pilot repatriation project. Does it hold out any hope for the forcibly displaced people to return to their ancestral homes in the Rakhine state of Myanmar? Only time will tell.

Unlike other revolutionaries, Hindutva icon wrote 5 mercy petitions to British masters

By Shamsul Islam*  The Hindutva icon VD Savarkar of the RSS-BJP rulers of India submitted not one, two,or three but five mercy petitions to the British masters! Savarkarites argue: “There are no evidences to prove that Savarkar collaborated with the British for his release from jail. In fact, his appeal for release was a ruse. He was well aware of the political developments outside and wanted to be part of it. So he kept requesting for his release. But the British authorities did not trust him a bit” (YD Phadke, ‘A complex Hero’, "The Indian Expres"s, August 31, 2004)

China ties up with India, Bangladesh to repatriate Rohingyas; Myanmar unwilling

By Harunur Rasid*  We now have a new hope, thanks to news reports that were published in the Bangladeshi dailies recently. Myanmar has suddenly taken initiatives to repatriate Rohingyas. As part of this initiative, diplomats from eight countries posted in Yangon were flown to Rakhine last week. Among them were diplomats from Bangladesh, India and China.

40,000 Odisha adolescent girls ask CM: Why is scheme to fight malnutrition on paper?

By Our Representative  In unique a postcard campaign to combat malnutrition, aimed at providing dietary diversity, considered crucial during adolescence, especially among girls, signed by about 40,000 adolescent girls from over 10,000 villages, have reminded Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik that his government's Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG), which converged with Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman  ( POSHAN ) 2.0 in 2021, is not being implemented in the State.

Natural farming: Hamirpur leads the way to 'huge improvement' in nutrition, livelihood

By Bharat Dogra*  Santosh is a dedicated farmer who along with his wife Chunni Devi worked very hard in recent months to convert a small patch of unproductive land into a lush green, multi-layer vegetable garden. This has ensured year-round supply of organically grown vegetables to his family as well as fetched several thousand rupees in cash sales.

Over-stressed? As Naveen Patnaik turns frail, Odisha 'moves closer' to leadership crisis

By Sudhansu R Das  Not a single leader in Odisha is visible in the horizon who can replace Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. He has ruled Odisha for nearly two and half decades. His father, Biju Patnaik, had built Odisha; he was a daring pilot who saved the life of Indonesia’s Prime Minister Sjahrir and President Sukarno when the Dutch army blocked their exit.