Gandhinagar:

Amid apprehensions and speculations about availability of drinking water in Gujarat during coming summer due to shortage of inflow of Narmada water from neighbouring Madhya Pradesh and subsequent announcement of the inability to provide irrigation water for summer crops by the state government, a top level official of the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd today said that there won’t be any problem in supplying drinking water from the Narmada reservoir till the next monsoon.

Director (Canals), SSNNL, C V Nadpara said that though the inflow from MP was only 2700 cusec today and the discharge from the reservoir was around 6000 cusec and the water level was receding yet even this inflow with the current live storage in the reservoir of Sardar Sarovar Dam in Kevadiya of Narmada district at 107.44 million cubic meter was more than enough to ensure unabated drinking water supply for long.

‘There won’t be any problem of drinking water till the next monsoon. Even if the inflow goes down to 2000 cusec, there won’t be any problem,’ he said adding that though there was a shortage in inflow today it was not that it won’t go up tomorrow.

‘It is a dynamic situation. At times the inflow increases. For instance the inflow yesterday was around 4000 cusec. Also the Gujarat share of water is also yet to be released so the state will easily sail through till next monsoon with regard to drinking water supply to over 160 towns and more than 12000 villages dependent on our project for it,’ he said.

He also clarified that the water level in the reservoir today was at 111.64 meter while the minimum level was 110.6 m. And the minimum level has nothing to do with the drinking water supply.

‘In fact even if the water level falls below the minimum level, only the power generation in the related hydel units will stop. It won’t affect the water supply as such. The power general in the canal bed hydel unit was still on,’ he said.

Nadpara, however, cautioned against the so called theft of Narmada water and said that such practices must be stopped completely for safe passage of summer.

‘We are taking steps to prevent it and also appealing people to cooperate in it for their own good,’ he said.

Notably, the state government has informed the farmers to not to sow summer crops if they don’t have alternative water resource except for Narmada water.

DeshGujarat