Narmada waters in Gujarat "stopped" to appease Madhya Pradesh farmers with eye on elections: Govt insider

A well-informed Gujarat government source has told Counterview that a major reason why the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd (SSNNL) recently declared there would be “no water” from the multi-purpose irrigation scheme, Sardar Sarovar dam, to Gujarat farmers starting March 15, 2018, is Madhya Pradesh elections, scheduled for this year-end.
The source, refusing to be identified, said, “Already, massive preparations are on in Madhya Pradesh to provide as much Narmada water to the state’s farmers by storing as much water as possible. The idea is to appease the farmers with Narmada waters in the same way as it was done last year before the elections took place in Gujarat.”
Suggesting that the BJP rulers in Madhya Pradesh are taking “no chances”, especially after anger sweeping the state’s rural areas following the Mandsaur incident in June last year, in which five farmers were killed in police firing, the source said, “At that time, in view of the Gujarat elections, the whole effort was open the gates of the big dams on Narmada in Madhya Pradesh to allow Narmada water to reach Gujarat to fill up the Sardar Sarovar dam, so that as canals were filled up and the state’s farmer could use them for irrigation.”
The official explanation to stop Narmada water to farmers after March 15 is “low reservoir levels”. A state government statement said, the water storage in the Narmada dam has “dropped” by 45 per cent, the lowest in 15 years due to “less rainfall” witnessed in Madhya Pradesh last monsoon.
The official communique, quoting SSNNL, appealed farmers to “skip” sowing of summer crops unless they have alternate sources of irrigation such as bore-wells, as water from Narmada would have to be saved for drinking purposes. Gujarat has about 1.5 million hectares under summer cultivation growing summer crops such as sesame, millets, pulses — lentils, groundnut and paddy.

The decision to curtail water was reportedly taken at the Narmada Control Authority (NCA), the inter-state body responsible for discharge of water from Narmada river to the dams in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. Officials said, NCA expects Narmada dam to get “just about 4.71 million acre feet (MAF)”, as against the “planned” nine MAF.

Kensville golf course

Meanwhile, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is going ahead with announcing schemes to Narmada provide water to irrigate the state’s fields. In his latest announcement, he declared the state’s irrigation area would be “increased to 60 lakh hectare”.
Addressing farmers at Antodaya Mela during his Vikas Yatra at Nasrullahganj of Sehore district, he said, Narmada has been “linked with Kshipra to increase irrigation area”, adding, arrangements were being made to “ensure to supply water to the agriculture fields of the farmers.”
Meanwhile, Khedut Samaj (Gujarat) general secretary Sagar Rabari, in a letter to Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, has wondered why the state government has decided to stop waters to farmers. “They have no problems supplying water to Coca Cola, farm houses owned by rich and mighty in the Nal Sarovar area, Kensville and Shantigram golf clubs. There is no mention in their official note on stopping water to them”, he told Counterview, quoting Narmada engineers.
Quoting Gujarat’s water resources adviser BN Navalawala, Rabari’s letter to Rupani says, the official decision to supply 0.20 MAF for supply to industry was violated, even in 2014. “Navalawala stated in one of his speeches that the SSNNL was providing 0.25 MAF to industry in 2014”, it adds.
“Today we are living in 2018 and many more industrial units have been getting the water which means now much more water than the quota goes to the industry”, alleges Rabari, demanding a white paper on how much water is being released from Narmada canal for the Sabarmati River Front in Ahmedabad just to please foreign dignitaries, and how much of it is being given the Kensville and Shantigram golf clubs.

Comments

Gujarat No 1 here too? Cops justify torture: 'Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis naturally prone to crimes'

A new report, "Status of Policing in India Report 2025: Police Torture and (Un)Accountability", states that Gujarat tops the list of 16 states and one Union Territory, with 63% of its police personnel "strongly endorsing" torture. Furthermore, 49% of Gujarat’s police personnel were found to have what the report calls a "high propensity" for torture, considering it "necessary and acceptable" for obtaining information across various crime categories—second only to Jharkhand (50%). In sharp contrast, Kerala has the lowest percentage of police personnel "justifying" torture (3%) and the lowest "high propensity" for violence (1%).

A traditional Marxian view? Like N-weapons, AI poses 'existential threat' to human civilization

The other day, I was talking with YS Gill , whom I have known as an incisive analyst since my youth, when he, like me, was associated with the Communist Party of India (CPI). A passionate science activist committed to creating awareness of scientific thinking, he told me about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it would lead to mass unemployment. Predicting that AI would replace human intervention in India’s call centers, he estimated that about 70 lakh people would be rendered jobless.

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's hype with eye on UP polls: Keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Will Trump govt use US religious freedom report to further pressure India into submission?

Already under pressure from the Trump administration, which has reportedly asked India—successfully, some would say—to remove high tariffs on American products, there is reason to wonder whether Washington might use the recommendations of the latest United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) Annual Report to further act against the Government of India.

Of lingering shadow of Haren Pandya's murder during Modi's Gujarat days

Sunita Williams’ return to Earth has, ironically, reopened an old wound: the mysterious murder of her first cousin, the popular BJP leader Haren Pandya, in 2003. Initially a supporter of Narendra Modi, Haren turned against him, not sparing any opportunity to do things that would embarrass Modi. Social media and some online news portals, including The Wire , are abuzz with how Modi’s recent invitation to Sunita to visit India comes against the backdrop of how he, as Gujarat’s chief minister, didn’t care to offer any official protocol support during her 2007 visit to Gujarat.

Patriot, Link: How Soviet imbroglio post-1968 influenced alternative media platforms

Adatata Narayanan, Aruna Asaf Ali Alternative media, as we know it today in the age of information and communication technology (ICT), didn't exist in the form it does today during or around the time I joined formal journalism at Link Newsweekly as a sub-editor in January 1979. However, Link, and its sister publication Patriot, a daily—both published from Delhi—were known to have provided what could be called an alternative media platform at a time when major Delhi-based dailies were controlled by media barons.

Martyrs’ Day at Sanand: Remembering Vinod Kinariwala amidst politics of remembrance

I was urged by a close relative, considered across my family as a binding force, to attend a grand ceremony on Martyrs' Day, March 23, along with four other relatives. The event, called Veeranjali (homage to martyrs), was to be held in an open space near Sanand town, about 15 kilometers from Ahmedabad. Martyrs' Day has been observed across India since independence, as it was on this day in 1931 that Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru were executed.

Search This Blog