In the start of this month the Gujarat government declared that 526 villages of the state being scarcity hit or semi scarcity hit and earlier this week they added 468 more villages to the list. Most of the villages are from Saurashtra and Kutch region.
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North Gujarat is the home of the current CM of Gujarat Anandiben Patel and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where people have reported to have witnessed acute water crisis.
There are about 18000 villages in the state and 15% of those villages, i.e. somewhere around 2500 will be affected drastically during the mid of May. In all the water bodies of the state, the water levels are up to 50100 MCM. In 202 water reservoirs the water level is at 4153.26 MCM. Altogether the water levels at 132 reservoirs have less than 10% water, 31 have 10- 20 % and 37 have 20-50%.
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Of the 17,843 villages in the state, nearly 8,050 are connected with the Narmada Canal while another 3,653 get their water from other sources.
The Sardar Sarovar dam stores 4,188 MCM of water that is nearly 80% of its total storage capacity of 5,265 MCM. Gujarat draws nearly 56 MCM of Narmada waters daily from this dam in central Gujarat. If this rate is followed then the water will be over in the next 15 days.
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New borewells and hand pumps were being placed and water is to be provided through tankers wherever it may be necessary. Gujarat doesn’t need any sort of rail assistance as of now but the future looks bleak for Gujarat, only a heavy downpour during the monsoon can save the state.
Inputs From The Hindu
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