Narmada water to continue to flow into Botad dams: officials

Also, police have been deployed along the SAUNI (Saurashtra-Narmada Avataran Irrigation) pipeline after people started opening its valves and releasing water in rivulets themselves.

Narmada water had reached Bhimdad dam in Gadhda taluka and Krushnasagar dam on the outskirts of Botad town around 10 days ago in the run up to inauguration of the phase-I of Link-II of the SAUNI Yojna. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the phase-I pipeline of the SAUNI project by formally releasing Narmada water in Krushnasagar dam on April 17.

Around 21 million cubic feet of Narmada water had been pumped into Bhimdad dam by the evening of April 17. However, officers of Bhavnagar irrigation circle were unsure as to how long Narmada water would be available. Prima facie, the dams had been getting the flow merely for the purpose of inauguration by the PM.

“Now, we have plans to continue pumping water in Bhimdad dam and other local ponds till April 30. We shall be in a position to tell how much water these dams have received by April 30,” said R A Makwana, superintending engineer of Bhavnagar irrigation circle.

The Indian Express reported on Monday that the state government has been releasing average 4,000 cusec (cubic foot per second) water from the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Narmada district every day even after the regular irrigation cycle ended on March 31 — no water was released last year during this time. However, Minister of State for Water Resources Nanu Vanani had told The Indian Express that the water was released for irrigation based on farmers’ demand and availability of water in the dam.

Bhimdad dam has a storage capacity of 239 million cubic feet (mcft). On April 17, the level of water in the dam was nine feet. It had risen to 10 feet by the evening of April 24. “We had continued pumping water in Bhimdad dam even after April 17. But, the flow was disrupted as farmers started opening valves along the 51 km-long phase-I pipeline of the SAUNI project. There are more than 300 valves in the pipeline and people were opening them out of turn. Therefore, we deployed police two days ago to prevent people from opening valves,” Makwana said.

In fact, Krushnasagar dam, which has a storage capacity of 35 mcft was filled around 80 per cent of its capacity by Monday evening.

The SAUNI is an ambitious Rs1600-crore project of diverting one million acre feet of floodwater of Narmada and fill 115 reservoirs of the arid Saurashtra region. Narmada water reaches Surendrangar district through the Saurashtra branch canal (SBC) of the Narmada project. The SBC in turn feeds six branch canals — Maliaya, Dhrangadhra, Morbi, Vallabhipur, Limdi and Botad.

The SAUNI project envisages to lift water from these branch canals and pump it to 115 dams through a 1,125 km-long network of giant pipelines. The PM had inaugurated phase-I of Link-I canal in August last year. The Link-II pipeline draws water from Vadod dam near Limdi and is designed to take water up to Raydi dam in Amreli district, covering a distance of more than 250 km. Vadod dam, in turn, is fed by Botad branch canal.

Vallabhipur and Maliya branch canals also carry water for drinking usage, besides providing water to farmers for irrigation. Morbi, Dhrangadhra, Limdi and Botad branch canals are irrigation canals only.

Usually, the SSNNL stops releasing water in Morbi, Dhrangadhra, Limdi and Botad canals from April 1. But, water continues to flow in Maliya and Vallabhipur branch canals so that it can be pumped to various parts of Saurashtra and Kutch regions for drinking purposes.

This year too, water flow had stopped in Dhrangadhra, Morbi and Limdi branch canals early this month, but an exception was made for Botad branch canal. “There was request from irrigation department to release water in Botad branch canal so that they could test Link-II and Link-IV pipelines of SAUNI project. We shall continue to release water in this canal till there is demand for it,” said an SSNNL officer in Rajkot.

Some farmers in Botad appeared overjoyed. “My well is already filled. I can’t believe that there can be water in my well at this time of the year when preceding monsoon was not good. I have already started planning to sow cotton on my land a few weeks from now,” said Devraj Surani, a farmer of Bhimdad village whose land is located downstream the Bhimdad dam.