Skip to main content

Gujarat CM queried: Where has 24.81 acre feet of water disappeared from Narmada dam?

By A Representative
Releasing month-wise data provided by the Narmada Control Authority (NCA), well-known Gujarat farmers’ rights leader Sagar Rabari, in a letter to chief minister Vijay Rupani has said that, citing low rainfall, the state government has stopped providing irrigation water starting with February 15, even though there has been enough water in the Narmada dam’s reservoir.
The letter says, as of today, out of 90 lakh acre feet of water from Narmada, Gujarat has received 63.38 lakh acre feet of water. Further, the level of water in the reservoir is constantly going up, reaching 119.50 meters, as the inflow from Madhya Pradesh is continuing. On the other hand, as against 17.92 lakh hectares (ha) of the Narmada command area, only 6.40 lakh hectares, which is just about a third of the command area, is being irrigated.
Rabari continues, of the 90 lakh acre feet of water, if we set aside 10 lakh acre feet for drinking water and industry, we are entitled to get 80 lakh acre feet for irrigating 17.92 lakh hectares. If calculated on this basis, currently, 6.40 lakh ha area should have received 28.57 lakh acre feet of water for the entire irrigation season.
And if one adds 10 lakh acre feet for drinking water and industry, and 28.57 lakh acre feet for irrigation, the total comes to 38.57 lakh acre feet of water, says Rabari, adding, accordingly, while Gujarat should have received about 63.38 acre feet of water, it is difficult to understand where did 24.81 lakh acre feet of water go. He wonders if water has been handed over to industry.

Comments

Post a Comment

NOTE: Hateful, abusive comments won't be published. -- Editor

TRENDING

Gujarat Sachivalaya blacklists, denies entry to woman social activist: Will NHRC probe?

By Kantilal Parmar*  I have approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) seeking an independent, impartial, and transparent investigation into a serious incident that took place at the Gujarat Secretariat in Gandhinagar on August 18, 2026. The matter concerns social activist and women’s rights leader Chandrikaben Solanki, who, according to the information available to me, was denied an entry pass to the Secretariat when she went there to meet Gujarat’s Social Justice and Empowerment Minister, Dr. Manishaben Vakil, to raise an issue concerning social justice.
Post a Comment
»

Ample evidence of child labour in South Gujarat's cash rich sugarcane belt: Study

By Rajiv Shah A recent German government-funded study , undertaken jointly by the NGO Prayas Centre for Labour Research and Action and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, which mainly deals examines the working conditions of migrant workers in the cash-rich sugarcane zone of South Gujarat, has gone a long way to suggest large scale prevalence of child labour during the harvesting season.
1 comment
»

Right to walk, right to livelihood: Clearing footpaths 'can't mean' clearing out the urban poor

By Aseem Mishra*    India’s cities are locked in a quiet but intensifying struggle over one of their most contested public spaces: the footpath. For pedestrians, a footpath is basic infrastructure—a strip of ground that should allow people to move safely, independently and with dignity. For millions of informal workers, the same stretch of pavement is a workplace, a source of daily income and often the difference between survival and destitution.
20 comments
»