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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Damning statistics -Nandini Oza

Damning statistics -Nandini Oza

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published Published on Sep 25, 2017   modified Modified on Sep 25, 2017
-TheWeek.in

Contrary to what the Gujarat government says, records show that the Sardar Sarovar Project is far from complete

Somabhai Raval was barely seven when prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid the foundation stone for the Sardar Sarovar Project at Kevadia Colony in Gujarat on April 5, 1961. A resident of Fatehpura village in Patan district of north Gujarat, Raval is not well educated. Till seven years ago, when construction of a minor canal near his field began, he had not heard that the government was harnessing the Narmada waters for the Sardar Sarovar Project.

The canal near his field was completed two years ago, but Raval’s 44 acres remain parched as ever. “Where will the water come from?” he asks, pointing to a kilometre-long furrow bordering his field. The furrow has not been joined to the canal and is filled with trash. “There is no flow now,” he says. “I will clear the trash when the water comes.” For now, he and his family of 10 depend on water from a borewell, which costs them one-third of their income.

On September 17, on the occasion of his 67th birthday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a plaque dedicating the Sardar Sarovar Dam to the nation, saying Gujarat would soon witness a green revolution. But farmers like Raval, who have been waiting decades for irrigation projects to bear fruit, do not expect any change in the near future.

The BJP has for long been criticising the opposition Congress for its alleged failure to increase the dam height when it was in power. But, in the past 22 years, during which it was in power, the party has done little to complete the network of canals. “The Gujarat government had been getting funds from the Centre under accelerated development schemes for irrigation,” says Himanshu Upadhyaya, an expert on public finance and water policy. “But the money was not used to build canals.”

Medha Patkar, whose Narmada Bachao Andolan opposes the project, had been claiming that the Narmada waters would never reach the parched areas of Gujarat. Considering what Raval and farmers like him are saying now, she seems to have been right, at least to some extent. The state government’s own records say that 25,000 kilometres of canals need to be built.

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TheWeek.in, 1 October, 2017, http://www.theweek.in/theweek/statescan/damning-statistics.html


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