Gujarat reserves water in 51 reservoirs till August for drinking

“Gujarat has enough and satisfactory storage of water this summer.The state government has decided to reserve the water storage of 51 reservoirs till 31st July for drinking purpose,” said Shri Nitin Patel, minister of water supply, government of Gujarat yesterday in Gandhinagar.

Reviewing the situation of water availability and supply in summer with higher officials of the state, Shri Patel said the state has 19 large and 177 medium size irrigation facilities. Presently there’s 1.90 million cubic meter water available which is 33% of total storage capacity. The storage of water will be reserved for drinking water purpose in 51 reservoirs.

Speaking about drinking water supply in difficult areas in summer, Shri Patel said there are 84 villages in Kutch, Junagadh, Jamnagar, Banaskantha, Patan and Rajkot districts where 44 tankers are supplying water. These villages are having hand pump, but while some hand pumps need repairing, some other are needed to replace, and the procedure is on. The arrangement of tankers is therefore temporary, and in most of the cases tankers are used for some areas with 150-200 population.

Patel said the state government has covered 3.62 crore people of 10796 out of total 18066 villages and all 127 towns of the state under water greed with 2209 km long bulk pipelines and 1,118,000 km plus distribution pipelines. Out of this 6360 villages and 92 towns receive water from greed, while 4552 villages get water through bore well oriented schemes and 2718 villages draw water from hand pump related schemes.