Sunday, October 02, 2011

Narmada is not just the name of a river. It is passion and emotion personified.

Management Guru Arindam Chaudhuri Dean Business School IIPM

Pronounce the word anywhere and you will hear emotional stories. Being a state with the fewest number of water resources, the Narmada should have been Gujarat’s lifeline

Within 340 days of being declared a separate state, on April 5, 1961, Gujarat's first chief minister Jivraj Mehta had called then PM Jawaharlal Nehru to lay the foundation of the state's lifeline. It was in 1946 that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel was first struck by the idea of building a large dam across the Narmada. The project was aptly named after him. It also reflected Nehru’s policy of giving importance to large development work. It is worth remembering what Nehru had said while laying the foundation of the world’s largest drinking water project. He had said, “This dam has been built with the unrelenting toil of man for the benefit of mankind and therefore is worthy of worship. May you call it a temple or a gurdwara or a mosque, it inspires our admiration and reverence.”

Despite being the foremost state in the country in terms of development work, Gujarat has been cursed by irregular rains and drought. Gujarat, being a leader in industries and business, has only 28 per cent agricultural land where planned irrigation facilities are available; at many other places, irrigation is provided by wells. The latter is not reliable as most of the shallow wells are rain-fed. Moreover, the coastal regions of Saurashtra and Kutch have turned the underground water salty. From 1960 till now, Gujarat has faced a famine every 3 to 4 years. It also faces water riots every summer even though it ranks high on all other development parameters. Compared to other states, Gujarat stands at number 10 in irrigation.

Why has Gujarat not become self-reliant in irrigation after Nehru's initiative to bring an end to the state's woes by constructing the gigantic project on the Narmada? One reason could be that there has not been a sincere effort by past governments to ensure that each and every household in Gujarat gets the benefit of the river water. Given that Gujarat is now celebrating its golden 50 years of development, and given that Narendra Modi has steadfastly focused on making Gujarat a better state, this could well be the appropriate time for the Modi government to have an enstrengthened focus on effectively utilising Narmada's waters in a planned and structured manner to reduce the water scarcity across the state. An immediate step could also be to include a bold focus on the Narmada in the current Swarnim Gujarat celebrations – though this would seem purely lip service, it would serve a bigger objective of telling various bureaucratic departments about the government's clear intent.

In 1979, after the final word by the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal (NWDT) on the Narmada dam oustees, it was believed that Narmada's water would reach each and every household in Gujarat. To its credit, Gujarat has rehabilitated most of the Adivasi oustees in its area according to the guidelines of the Supreme Court – unlike what has happened in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Yet, a final date for the project completion still seems afar.

“In 1979, then agriculture minister Keshubhai Patel had declared that the Narmada project would be completed in 12 years, but 30 years have gone by,” says Shamjibhai Antana, member of the Gujarat Ecology Commission and veteran water expert. Antana says he looks forward to a day when the project would be completed.

People like Gautam Thakar, secretary of the Gujarat unit of People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), also share Antana’s views. To assess the present situation of the Narmada project and its future, PUCL got together with other non-political associations and organised a Peoples’ Inquiry Committee that prepared a huge report titled 'Narmada Project: Unfulfilled Dreams – The Implementation of the Project Report By the Public Association'. According to the report, under the Narmada project, during 1961-2010, Rs 29,000 crore has been used; yet, only 29 per cent success has been achieved with respect to towns and cities getting water; close to 50 per cent success has been achieved with respect to villages; 8,215 villages and 135 towns and cities were to benefit; but still, 37 cities and towns and 3,962 villages have not received any water. When it comes to getting drinking water (as opposed to just normal use water), the committee points out that only 11 per cent success has been achieved in villages. On an average, only 3 per cent of the project objectives are met every year.

Again, under the project, 66,000-km long canal-ways were supposed to be built to distribute water to each and every household and agricultural field. Even if one goes by the estimates given out in 1987, it was said that while only 29 per cent of the work had been completed (till then), the full project would take another 31 years. Thankfully, those figures have been revised for the better.

Interestingly, it has also been regrettably noticed that the canals which were to irrigate farmlands have in some cases actually destroyed them. Till now, a total of 308 big and small breaches have happened. Another issue is about the fact that even those cities that receive the Narmada water many a time do not receive the same at the proper pressure.

There are societies in Ahmedabad where members have paid thousands of rupees to the municipal corporation but are still waiting for Narmada water. Farmers of Surendranagar district have paid Rs 1000 each to the government but they do not get Narmada water.
What is the situation in 2010? The Modi government had proactively first declared that the project would be competed in 2010. Due to various delays, the deadline has been extended to 2014. Currently, the government is apparently allotting Rs 2500 crore for the final phase of the project. One suspects that that figure might not be enough to speed up the completion of the project.

In summary, the fact is that the Narmada river can be the basis for resolving almost all water issues within Gujarat. One hopes the government now works double time to this effect.

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