Delayed Monsoon: Gujarat CM to hold high-level review meeting on Thursday

Ahmedabad, 25 June, 2014

Gujarat Chief Minister Smt. Anandiben Patel has organized a high level meeting tomorrow to review the situation emerging out of delay in the setting up of the current monsoon season.

The meeting, chaired by the Chief Minister, will review the emerging situation in details.

Why meeting?

-In normal season, by this time entire Gujarat should be covered by monsoon, but so far only the areas of south Gujarat upto Surat and southern Saurashtra have witnessed official arrival of monsoon 2014. Even in these areas, rain has been absent after initial spell.

-While in last year the rain so far in monsoon crossed 20%, this year there has been only less than 4% rain of the season in Gujarat.

-Level of water in most of the 200 dams is very low. In Rajkot district,the Collector has recently issued a notification and declared dam water reserved for only drinking purpose.

-Due to delayed monsoon, sowing has been extremely low compared to previous year.

-According to weather experts, there’s no possibility of revival of monsoon in Gujarat by first week of July atleast.

-So far the state government has declared about 200 villages in two talukas of Kutch district as partially scarcity affected, but in upcoming weeks need may arise to declare more villages scarcity affected.

-The state government has announced a toll-free helpline to receive and resolve complains regarding water supply issues for five districts. More districts could be covered under this helpline soon.

-Luckily Narmada dam has 78% water. At least drinking water problem can be addressed utilizing the same.