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

Was Netaji forced to alter face, die in obscurity in USSR in 1975? Was he so meek?

  By Rajiv Shah   This should sound almost hilarious. Not only did Subhas Chandra Bose not die in a plane crash in Taipei, nor was he the mysterious Gumnami Baba who reportedly passed away on 16 September 1985 in Ayodhya, but we are now told that he actually died in 1975—date unknown—“in oblivion” somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Which city? Moscow? No one seems to know.
1 comment
»

Love letters in a lifelong war: Babusha Kohli’s resistance in verse

By Ravi Ranjan*  “War does not determine who is right—only who is left.” Bertrand Russell’s words echo hauntingly in our times, and few contemporary Hindi poets embody this truth as profoundly as Babusha Kohli. Emerging from Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Kohli has carved a unique space in literature by weaving together tenderness, protest, and philosophy across poetry, prose, and cinema. Her work is not merely artistic expression—it is resistance, refuge, and a call for peace.
Post a Comment
»

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.
59 comments
»

Asbestos contamination in children’s products highlights global oversight gaps

By A Representative   A commentary published by the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS) has drawn attention to the challenges governments face in responding effectively to global public-health risks. In an article written by Laurie Kazan-Allen and published on March 5, 2026, the author examines how the discovery of asbestos contamination in children’s play products has raised questions about regulatory oversight and international product safety. The article opens by reflecting on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, noting that governments in several countries were slow to respond to early warning signs of the crisis. Referring to the experience of the United Kingdom, the author writes that delays in implementing protective measures contributed to “232,112 recorded deaths and over a million people suffering from long Covid.” The commentary uses this example to illustrate what it describes as the dangers of underestimating emerging threats. Attention then turns...
Post a Comment
»

Echoes of Vietnam and Chile: The devastating cost of the I-A Axis in Iran

​ By Ram Puniyani  ​The recent joint military actions by Israel and the United States against Iran have been devastating. Like all wars, this conflict is brutal to its core, leaving a trail of human suffering in its wake. The stated pretext for this aggression—the brutality of the Ayatollah Khamenei regime and its nuclear ambitions—clashes sharply with the reality of the diplomatic landscape. Iran had expressed a willingness to remain at the negotiating table, signaling a readiness to concede points emerging from dialogue. 
Post a Comment
»

Authoritarian destruction of the public sphere in Ecuador: Trumpism in action?

By Pilar Troya Fernández  The situation in Ecuador under Daniel Noboa's government is one of authoritarianism advancing on several fronts simultaneously to consolidate neoliberalism and total submission to the US international agenda. These are not isolated measures, but rather a coordinated strategy that combines job insecurity, the dismantling of the welfare state, unrestricted access to mining, the continuation of oil exploitation without environmental considerations, the centralization of power through the financial suffocation of local governments, and the systematic criminalization of all forms of opposition and popular organization.
Post a Comment
»

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

Nalanda mahavihara By Rajiv Shah  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".
51 comments
»

The kitchen as prison: A feminist elegy for domestic slavery

By Garima Srivastava* Kumar Ambuj stands as one of the most incisive voices in contemporary Hindi poetry. His work, stripped of ornamentation, speaks directly to the lived realities of India’s marginalized—women, the rural poor, and those crushed under invisible forms of violence. His celebrated poem “Women Who Cook” (Khānā Banātī Striyāṃ) is not merely about food preparation; it is a searing indictment of patriarchal domestic structures that reduce women’s existence to endless, unpaid labour.
Post a Comment
»

The price of silence: Why Modi won’t follow Shastri, appeal for sacrifice

By Arundhati Dhuru, Sandeep Pandey*  ​In 1965, as India grappled with war and a crippling food crisis, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri faced a United States that used wheat shipments under the PL-480 agreement as a lever to dictate Indian foreign policy. Shastri’s response remains legendary: he appealed to the nation to skip one meal a day. Millions of middle-class households complied, choosing temporary hunger over the sacrifice of national dignity. Today, India faces a modern equivalent in the energy sector, yet the leadership’s response stands in stark contrast to that era of self-reliance.
Post a Comment
»