Ahmedabad, 16 August 2012

Urban development and Water resources minister of Gujarat Shri Nitin Patel in his speech at Sabarmati river front in Ahmedabad yesterday alleged that Gujarat Congress have asked centre to halt permission to set up Narmada dam gates just for the reason that if permission is given, Modi would be popular ahead of the assembly elections. Patel added that due to centre’s refusal to give nod to set up the gates over Narmada dam, precious surplus water is flowing to the sea.

“This water you are seeing in Sarbamati river here is received from Narmada dam. Daily about three crore people use Narmada water in Gujarat. Be it irrigation, agriculture, animals or industry, Narmada water is supplied to all classes.”

He then said, “I want to led your attention to a serious matter. Today on 15th August Narmada dam is overflowing, and it is possible that overflow will continue till next Sunday. While we all are happy that Narmada dam is overflowing, there is also a disappointing feature attached to it.You will ask why we should be worried due to overflow of Narmada dam? I want to tell you that Narmada dam’s height has reached only 121.92 meter so far. When centre was not granting permission to raise the height in past, the Chief Minister selected the path of non-violent protest and observed fast in Ahmedabad in presence of religious saints and others, and then the centre had granted permission. Thanks to this we are witnessing this Narmada water here. But we are not fully satisfied yet, because actually we need to raise the height of Narmada dam upto 138 meter.”

Nitin Patel further said, “for your information, we have witnessed overflow at Narmada dam regularly in last ten years. The water that flows to the sea and thus wasted is so much that we can satisfy the needs of irrigation, drinking water, industries for two full years. If centre had permitted us to resume construction and achieve 138 meter height, Sardar Sarovar reservoir could have four times more water today. Like during Shri Narendra Modi’s rule curfew has become a matter of past, power shortage has become a matter of past, even drought could have become a matter of past. ”

“Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh’s central government are directly responsible for this. I clearly allege that Gujarat Congress leaders Arjun Modhwadia, Shaktisinh Gohil, Siddharth Patel and Shankersinh Vaghela went to Delhi and told the centre that construction of gates over Narmada dam must not be allowed before the 2012 assembly elections, otherwise Modi would become popular and Congress which has two figure presence of MLAs in Gujarat assembly will go further down to single digit figure,” he said.

“Gujarat is facing drought, Saurashtra and Kutch are facing serious problem, but Gujarat Congress doesn’t care. They just can see power, and are not allowing people of Gujarat to taste benefits of Narmada project. They are daily throwing one allegation against the government, but the Chief Minister replies it with one development work,” Patel said.

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