Narmada brings Gujarat no relief

z A special train will provide drinking water to 100 villages in Okha, Dwarka, and Kalyanpur taluka of Jamnagar district from April 15 as al...

z A special train will provide drinking water to 100 villages in Okha, Dwarka, and Kalyanpur taluka of Jamnagar district from April 15 as all sources of water in villages there have dried up.

• Pipelines are being laid on an emergency footing by the Narmada & Water Supply Department to take water to 700 villages in the Sabarkantha district. Six dams in the district are on the verge of drying up totally.

• Hardly 31 kms from Ahmedabad, Dehgam faces a critical drinking-water shortage, prompting the government to commission the sinking of 35 tubewells.

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Even God has no water

TIRUCHI: The current drought in the Cauvery forced the Arulmigu Vekkaliamman Temple authorities to purchase water from private sources for the abishekam of the deity on Tuesday. A total of 4 tanker-loads of water had to be purchased at Rs 100 per load, devotees said. This is the first time in the past 40 year that the river couldn’t provide water for the ritual. The Chithirai festival starts usually on the Tamil New Year’s Day.
(Tharian Mathew)

Several parts of the state, including the Saurashtra, north Gujarat, and central Gujarat regions, are in the grip of severe water scarcity, with major dams, reservoirs, and other water sources drying up completely in 10 districts.

This makes this year’s drought look much worse than those of previous years. Not only Saurashtra, but also Sabarkantha, Banaskantha, and Patan in north Gujarat, and Kheda, Anand, and Balasinor in central Gujarat are facing severe water scarcity.

State Finance Minister Vajubhai Vala, who was addressing reporters on the completion of 111 days of the Narendra Modi government on Friday, admitted that conditions were bad. And Water Supply Minister Narottam Patel said, ‘‘All major dams like Dharoi (Mehsana), Sani (Jamnagar), Hiren (Junagadh), Aji and Nyari (Rajkot), Dantiwada and Sippu (Banaskantha), have dried up. Earlier, some of these dams at least had dead water. Emergency work has been commissioned to lay pipelines and supply water by tanker to at least 1,000 villages in north and central Gujarat, besides Saurashtra.’’

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His department figures say over 90 dams have dried up in Saurashtra and north and central Gujarat. Though there was much euphoria over Narmada water, it has brought little relief to rural areas.

Patel admitted, ‘‘Narmada water can be supplied in cities where a pipeline network exists. But rural areas are beyond its reach.’’

Things would have been worse even in the cities, but for the arrival of Narmada water, said K. Kailashnathan, secretary to the department. ‘‘From April 1, Rajkot and Jamnagar have started receiving Narmada water. Bhavnagar, Amreli, and Junagadh, too have started getting Narmada water. Otherwise things would have been very bad.’’ Of the arrangements to supply water by train, Kailashnathan said, ‘‘The water will be taken there by train. Also, water will be fed into a pipeline near Bhatia and conveyed to villages.’’

An emergency pipeline is being laid to take Narmada water from Junagadh to Keshod, but that may take a month. Mangrol, also in Junagadh district, will have to depend on water tankers. Tubewells are being sunk to tap ground water from the dry bed of the Hiren dam.