About 5.73 lakh people of Surendranagar, Wadhawan and Joravarnagar and nine talukas 61 villages will soon be benefited by a chain of five new pumping stations that would lift Narmada canal water from Saurashtra branch canal near Dhanki and facilitate supply to Dholidhaja dam.

Geographically Dholidhaja dam is located at 66.43 meter higher place compare to Saurashtra branch Narmada canal’s Lilapur-Dhanki pumping station no.1 where Narmada water is available.

The Government of Gujarat in his latest project which is all set to be inaugurated this Sunday, has erected five large pumping station between 59 km to 104.46 km area to pump the water up to 66.43 meter high.

Of five pumping stations, the first one – Lilapur-Dhanki pumping station will lift the water 10.806 meter high, the second pumping station near Lakhtar will pump the water 15.71 meter high. Bala pumping station will lift the water 15.047 meter high, another one pumping station at Rajpar will lift the water 12.047 meter high and the last – Dudhrej(Khamisana) pumping station will lift the water up to 12.047 meter high. Thus together they will pump the water as high as 66.43 meter at final destination which is Dholidhaja dam.

Nayka dam has been connected to Dholidhaja dam through Rs 2.61 crore new pipe line. Narmada water in Dholidhaja dam will provide water to 18 villages of Wadhawan and Muli talukas under Nayka group water supply project. In addition to this, the water would be supplied to Thangadh town and 22 villages of Sayla taluka. Through Narmada’s pipe line greed, that could connect 224 villages of Sayla, Muli and Chotila talukas, the problem of drinking water could be eliminated completely and permanently in Surendranagar district.

Total 1800 km pipeline works have been completed in last three years in Gujarat at a cost of Rs 250 crore to provide drinking water to 424 villages. Narmada’s Saurashtra main canal will provide drinking water to 1666 villages and 17 towns of Saurashtra under ongoing Rs 1304 crore project that will be completed in year 2012 as per the present target.

Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam’s engineers and officials are working round the clock for success of this project which is scheduled to be dedicated by Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday.

Though lifting of water through pumping is very costly in view of heavy power consumption, the project is very important for the people of this area due to poor monsoon and negligible less than 20 per cent water storage in dams in the district.

One person needs 70 liter water in one day. As per this estimate, Surendranagar-plus area will need 40 million liter water every day. A new project would be able to supply 432 million liter Narmada water to Dholidhaja dam. Dholidhaja dam’s storage capacity is 720 MCFT. Its live storage capacity is 660 MCFT and dead storage capacity is 60 MCFT. Presently there is only MCFT water in Dholidhaja dam. Electric power worth Rs 2.70 lakh is being spent monthly to pump the dead water for water supply to Wadhawan.

The city of Surendranagar has population of 2 lakh. Each person would need 100 liter water in day. This means Surendranagar will get 2 million liter water. Wadhawan which has population of 90,000 persons will get 9 lakh liter water. Both Wadhawan and Surendranagar get once a week water supply in present situation. Thangadh and Chotila will get 42 lakh and 12.50 lakh liter water per day respectively. 22 villages of Sayla taluka under Dhedhuki group water supply project will get 25 lakh liter water when needed.

In next one and half year, 3,51,297 strong population of Thangadh town and Chotila, Sayla, Muli taluka’s 224 villages will be able to get 218 lac liter water every day permanently. Nayka group and Jasapar zone’s 18 villages will get 33 lac liter water everyday. This would save tanker cost which is as high as 3 crore per year.