Will water woes drown Modi in Saurashtra?

The persistent water woes of Saurashtra, a scarcity-prone area of Gujarat, has become one of the main poll issues in the 2012 Assembly elections here as people are angry that virtually nothing has been done in the last 10 years to resolve the problem permanently.

Saurashtra, an area without a perennial river and having inverted pan topography, suffers from water scarcity as average rainfall is also very less here.

“The government is not serious in addressing the core issue...there is severe problem of water for drinking and irrigation, in our region,” Sendhabhai Mavadia, a farmer in Jetpur town of, Rajkot district, said.

Many people in cities or in villages in the region agree that no government has brought a permanent solution to the water woes.

In all seven districts of Rajkot, Junagadh, Bhavnagar, Porbandar, Jamnagar, Amreli and Surendranagar, there is restricted supply of water.

Residents in Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Junagadh and Surendranagar get water every alternate day and that too for 20-30 minutes.

The situation in smaller cities and villages is much worse. Gariadhar is getting water every third day, Sihor every second day and in Mahuva housewives have to keep every water storage utensil handy as they get drinking water supply only once in four days.

Saurashtra and Kutch consists of 54 assembly constituencies, out of total 182 in the state, and are considered a key for any political outfit to form government in Gujarat.

Polling for these seats will be held on December 13 in the first phase of the Assembly elections.

The only solution to permanently resolve the water woes of Saurashtra was to bring water from Narmada dam project and implement another major drinking water project Kalpsar.

However, building of a canal network of Narmada dam project, which is considered to be the lifeline of the State, is going on at a very slow pace and Kalpsar project is in study stage.

Out of the total 74,626 km canal network of Narmada dam, work completed so far is of just 19,885 km which comes to about 27 per cent of total work.

In the last three years, the BJP government was just been able to complete 289.22 km canal network work.

The total amount spent so far by the State on the Narmada dam and canal network project is Rs 24,022 crore.

Narmada being a perennial river, harnessing of its water by building a huge dam and distributing it through the canal network for drinking and irrigation purposes is a lifeline project of the state for water.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi at a campaign rally has also rubbed it in when she alleged that the BJP Government has not been able to bring Narmada waters to Saurashtra in spite of ruling the State for 10 years.