Skip to main content

Ahmedabad, GIFT, Adani city get 1.68 lakh acre ft Narmada water; Gujarat's rural areas just 4.27 AF: Letter to CM

Narmada waters in Sabarmati riverfront, Ahmedabad
Counterview Desk
Well-known farmer rights leader Sagar Rabari, in an open letter to Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, has demanded a transparent account of Narmada water, saying, while he has received a "routine reply" from him to his earlier, the data emerging from his RTI application show huge quantity of water being directed to Ahmedabad, the 10 km stretch of Sabarmati for the Ahmedabad riverfront, and nearby elite urban areas, including the Adanis' Shantigram township and GIFT City.

Text of the letter:

In response to my earlier letter to you dated 28th October, 2018 I have received a routine reply that my letter has been forwarded to the Narmada and Kalpsar Department. However, the data emerging from the RTI application are truly shocking.
The reply of the Acting Engineer, Narmada Irrigation and Canal Dept. no. 2 Gandhinagar (no. ja.va.no. PB-3/RTI/Paani/1094, dated 30/4/2018) states that:
“In the 6.5 months between 1st July and 12th January 2018 a total of 101.81993 MCM (10,18,19,930 Cubic Meter) i.e. 12699.52055596923 acre feet (AF), i.e 12,700 acre feet water was released into the Sabarmati river.” If we calculate this for 12 months then it comes to 23,446 acre feet of water released into the Sabarmati river.
In addition, the reply states, Ahmedabad city gets “330 ML from Narmada main canal through gravity and 275 ML from Dholka branch canal daily”. This comes to 605 ML daily which is 391 AF. This amounts to 1,42,715 AF annually taken for Ahmedabad city from the Narmada canal.
Thus, Ahmedabad city and Sabarmati river itself take away 1,68,233 AF water directly from the Narmada water and canal.
GIFT City
GIFT City receives 4 ML daily, 1460 ML annually i.e. 146,00,00,000 litres comes to 1184 AF of water from the Narmada canal and river.
Shantigram Township, at the outskirts of Ahmedabad city, receives 3 ML of water daily, which amounts to 1095 ML annually, i.e. 1,09,50,00,000 litres, which is 888 AF water annually.
Similarly, the response from Gujarat Water Infrastructure Ltd (dated 10/5/2018, No GWIL/RTI/no.225/761/2018) reveals: “(We have) lifted a total of 561079.99 ML water between 01/04/2017 and 31/03/2018.” This amounts to 5,61,07,99,90,000 litres of water from different branch canals of Narmada canal. Annually this comes to 4,54,874.9441 AF water!
The cumulative total is:
Sabarmati river 23,446 AF
Ahmedabad city 1,42,71 AF
GIFT City 1,184 AF
Shantigram 888 AF
GWIL 4,54,875 AF
Total 6,23,108 AF
In simple language, this means that:
  • Sabarmati river, Ahmedabad city, GIFT city and Shantigram Township alone use up 1,68,233 AF water each year;
  • While the villages, taluka and district headquarters of North Gujarat, Saurashtra, and Kutch get only 4,27,011 AF water over the entire year.
Adanis' Shantigram township
Of the water lifted by GWIL, the distribution by districts to industries daily is as under: (figures in MLD):
Jamnagar/Devbhoomi Dwarka 37.184
Kutch 31.065
Bhavnagar 17.588
Amreli 3.686
Rajkot/Morbi 1.340
Junagadh/Gir Somnath 2.924
Ahmedabad/Botad 0.411
Total 94.162
This comes to 34369.13 ML annually (34369130000 litres) i.e. 27863.5067 AF water annually.
In the same vein, SSNNL directly provided 53.22 MLD water to industries in 2016-17 (19425.3 ML). The volume in AF is 15,784.3467 annually.
As per the data provided by SSNNL:

We have the accounts of water in AF. Out of the 5.08 MAF of water which is Gujarat’s share, what happened to the 50,80,000 AF of water? What did the SSNNL do with it? We, the farmers, demand the account of the missing 44,41,144 AF of water from the dam which was built in our name and for us.
The picture of water usage does not emerge clearly from the figures of RTI response. We demand answers to the following questions from you:
  1. Was the Narmada dam built to provide greenery and lawns and golf courses to GIFT City and Shantigram or was it to water the farmers’ fields?
  2. We demand to know why the 4 big irrigation schemes of GoG have utterly failed. Put another way, Narmada dam has so far only provided irrigation to 6,28,011 ha. The talukas under dark zone increased just as the Sujlam Suflam scheme was announced. Kalpsar, which is invoked at every election but has seen no progress. And finally, SAUNI yojana where cricket matches are played in the dam.
  3. If, as per the NCA website there was 2628 MCM water (21,30,554.24AF) in the dam on 04/10/2018, then why is water not being provided to farmers reeling under drought?
  4. As per the figures of the dam (04/10/2018) even if we keep 10,00,000 AF water in reserve for drinking water and industrial uses, why is the rest of the 11,30,554.24 AF water not being provided to the farmers? Is the water being kept in reserve to showcase it to the industrialists due to visit Gujarat during the VGGIS 2019?
  5. There has been scant rainfall and there is no possibility of more, and drought is certainly there. Yet, your government is lackadaisical in declaring areas as “drought-affected”. Why? Is it to facilitate insurance companies to get away without paying the insurance claims which would then become due to the farmers? Are we wrong to suspect that you are sacrificing farmers and their livelihoods to help insurance companies?
Moreover,
  1. We demand monthly figures pertaining to total water released into the main canal each month, and how much water from that was given to GWIL?
  2. We want to know how much water was released into Sabarmati river each month between 1st July 2017 and 30th June 2018?
  3. We want to know, of that water released into the Sabarmati river, how many industries took how much water each month?
  4. we want month-wise figures (between 1st July 2017 and 30th June 2018) of how many AF of water did SSNNL provide directly to Ahmedabad city, from which canals.
  5. We want to know how many acres/hectares per month were irrigated between 1st July 2017 and 30th June 2018.
  6. We want to know which cities and industries received water directly from SSNNL and/or GWIL and how much (in AF).
We wish to go to every village and every district with the answers that you provide. We want to inform the farmers of the exact account of the Narmada water and so it is essential that we receive truthful and official answers to our questions from you. Account of the Narmada water and the enigmatic silence of GoG on the Kalpsar project will become important issues in the forthcoming elections. For that reason we insist that we get truthful an official figures from your end.

Comments

Post a Comment

TRENDING

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...
Post a Comment
»

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor*  This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.
Post a Comment
»

History, culture and literature of Fatehpur, UP, from where Maulana Hasrat Mohani hailed

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat*  Maulana Hasrat Mohani was a member of the Constituent Assembly and an extremely important leader of our freedom movement. Born in Unnao district of Uttar Pradesh, Hasrat Mohani's relationship with nearby district of Fatehpur is interesting and not explored much by biographers and historians. Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri has written a book on Maulana Hasrat Mohani and Fatehpur. The book is in Urdu.  He has just come out with another important book, 'Hindi kee Pratham Rachna: Chandayan' authored by Mulla Daud Dalmai.' During my recent visit to Fatehpur town, I had an opportunity to meet Dr Mohammad Ismail Azad Fatehpuri and recorded a conversation with him on issues of history, culture and literature of Fatehpur. Sharing this conversation here with you. Kindly click this link. --- *Human rights defender. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/vbrawat , X @freetohumanity, Skype @vbrawat
1 comment
»

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.
Post a Comment
»

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat*  As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.
Post a Comment
»

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra*   It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...
Post a Comment
»

Women's rights leaders told to negotiate with Muslimness, as India's donor agencies shun the word Muslim

By A Representative Former vice-president Hamid Ansari has sharply criticized donor agencies engaged in nongovernmental development work, saying that they seek to "help out" marginalizes communities with their funds, but shy away from naming Muslims as the target group, something, he insisted, needs to change. Speaking at a book release function in Delhi, he said, since large sections of Muslims are poor, they need political as also social outreach.
1 comment
»

Sardar Patel was on Nathuram Godse's hit list: Noted Marathi writer Sadanand More

Sadanand More (right) By  A  Representative In a surprise revelation, well-known Gujarati journalist Hari Desai has claimed that Nathuram Godse did not just kill Mahatma Gandhi, but also intended to kill Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. Citing a voluminous book authored by Sadanand More, “Lokmanya to Mahatma”, Volume II, translated from Marathi into English last year, Desai says, nowadays, there is a lot of talk about conspiracy to kill Gandhi, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, but little is known about how the Sardar was also targeted.
Post a Comment
»

Bihar’s land at ₹1 per acre for Adani sparks outrage, NAPM calls it crony capitalism

By A Representative   The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has strongly condemned the Bihar government’s decision to lease 1,050 acres of land in Pirpainti, Bhagalpur district, to Adani Power for a 2,400 MW coal-based thermal power project. 
Post a Comment
»