Gujarat's water anarchy? 16.7% of Narmada water going to industry, 33% of targeted area irrigated

 By Rajiv Shah
The Narmada project is something that has always excited me, including how much water will be distributed and to which sector. A few days ago, when I was talking to a top Gujarat government insider, I was a little surprised when I was told that it is up to the “respective states to decide how much Narmada water they would distribute among various sectors” out of the total quota allocated to the four states—Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan—as per the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal award of 1979.

The “award” specified the quantum of utilizable water “at 75% dependability” to be shared as follows: Of the total water availability of 28 million acre-feet (MAF) from the Narmada River, Madhya Pradesh is supposed to get 18.25 MAF, followed by Gujarat with 9.00 MAF (mostly from the dam), Rajasthan with 0.50 MAF, and Maharashtra with 0.25 MAF.
Meant primarily as an irrigation project, this insider, who refused to be named, told me that it is up to Gujarat to decide how much of its 9 MAF quota of Narmada water it might want to allocate to the industry. “Can it be 70%?” I specifically asked. He replied that it is up to the state to decide; “the tribunal is silent on this.” The Narmada Control Authority (NCA), the inter-state body that monitors the flow of Narmada water, too, “has no say in this.”
When he regretted that, for the last two decades, the Gujarat government has not been publishing figures on how much water is going to which sector of the state, nor is there any authentic data on the area being irrigated with Narmada waters, I queried him: How much of Narmada water does he estimate is going to industry right now?
“It is very difficult to say because of a lack of data, but according to the figures floating around in the corridors of power, 1.5 MAF of water out of 9 MAF is currently going to the state’s industry,” this insider told me. This means that, already, a whopping 16.7% of the water is going to industry! And with Gujarat emerging as India's “primary semiconductor center,” a water intensive sector, with major investments being attracted by policy support, this percentage is likely to increase.
And why is the industry getting so much water? I asked this insider. “This is primarily because the pressure from agriculture for Narmada water has not increased, as out of about 18 lakh hectares (ha) that were supposed to be irrigated, only about one-third of the area is actually being irrigated via Narmada canal waters.”
The insider asserted, “If you ask the officials overseeing the Narmada project, they would say that 12 lakh ha have come under irrigation. However, this figure is based on satellite imagery, which does not distinguish between different sources of water. The blue spots do not necessarily indicate Narmada-based water. My information suggests that the actual irrigated area is just about 6 lakh ha.”
Calling this a result of “water anarchy” in water management, he noted that the Gujarat government’s decision to lay down pipelines to ensure that farms receive Narmada water in lieu of minor and sub-minor canals has “failed” despite huge expenditures towards this end.
“Most of the pipelines face multiple problems. They are blocked by silt in many places, and nobody is there to clean them. In other places, they have not been laid down properly, so water does not flow naturally through them. There are also spots where power is required to lift the water, and this too is not working,” the insider said, adding, “As a result, in various places, farmers simply lift water from the Narmada canal by sinking tubewell pumps.”