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City may not get Narmada water twice a day Thursday, March 29, 2001

Ahmedabad: Water supplies minister Narottam Patel has made it clear that it is impossible to provide Narmada water to Ahmedabad twice a day. A few days ago Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel had announced that not only would the city have no water problems but the cut in water supply to the city-dwellers, effective since last year's drought, would also come to an end with Narmada water entering Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation areas. Water would begin being provided twice a day, he had emphasised.

In a statement distributed in the state Assembly on Wednesday, Narottam said the whole talk of providing water twice a day was "laughable particularly at a time when Saurashtra's different regions were still not receiving water even once in five or ten days."

Careful enough not to criticise the CM directly, he instead mentioned the ruling city Congress's demand to fulfil the promise to provide waters twice a day to Ahmedabad.

"We are spending crores worth of energy to pump out Narmada water. It is a very costly affair. We are going to charge the local self-governments for the water. In case the Congress rulers of Ahmedabad fail to pay, then I would have to go in for a drastic cut in water supply to the city," Narottam warned. "The government would then not be held responsible for water shortage in the city", he added.

Politically sensitive for the BJP, an extra water cut to Ahmedabad city had to be effected because of the "urgent need to fill up Ajwa reservoir so that Vadodara starts getting normal drinking water supply." But because of the hue and cry in Ahmedabad over the cut, "we have had to restore the supply to 4 MGD on Wednesday", instead of a mere 1.5 MGD supplied on Tuesday. "The CM had promised 7.5 MGD, though the final plans were for 6.5 MGD", Narottam told TOI. "We hope we are able to maintain a supply of 5 MGD", he added.

Narottam further clarified that a cut in Ahmedabad's supply would have to be effected for at least three days to fill up Ajwa some time in future.

"We also need to fill up 300 ponds in Kheda district, gone dry because of the drought. That too would put strain on water supply to the city", he said, adding, "IPCL and other Vadodara-based industries want 200 cusecs of water from Narmada out of 650 left in the canal, but we cannot give them more than 100 cusecs."

 

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