Gandhinagar, 7 July, 2014

There are 67 borewell rings at work at present on behalf of Government of Gujarat across the state and soon this figure will be lifted to 100 rings in two-three days, said Water Supply and Irrigation minister Babubhai Bokhiria on Monday morning to DeshGujarat.

In a brief conversation, Babubhai said whenever complain on failure of local source of water is received, a borewell ring is sent to that place to create another source. In most of the cases, borewell digging task is completed in one day, and electric motor is sent next day to start water supply. Similar task is performed in tribal areas in connection with hand pumps. Wherever bore well doesn’t work, the government sends tankers.

Bokhiria said, Narmada network is helping a lot in water supply efforts in Saurashtra. Most of the parts of Saurashtra are connected to direct/indirect network of Narmada water. Bokhiria gave an example of Bhavnagar district where only twenty villages are yet to be connected to Narmada network. He said even these twenty will be connected in a few days from now, as testing is already on.

When asked about a toll free telephone helpline launched by the state government for specific districts of Saurashtra/Kutch, Bokhiria said though it was announced for certain districts, it receives and addresses the complains from across the state. He said there were complains from specific districts that they couldn’t connect to irrigation offices through phone, therefore a toll free centralized helpline was launched.

Bokhiria said helpline is not receiving many complains, and most complains were registered from Kutch district.

He said, keeping cattle population in mind, Kutch has been supplied 70 liter water/person instead of national norm of 50 liter.

He said there are three things associated with the delayed monsoon situation; drinking water, fodder and relief works.

The fodder issue he said is prevailing in Kutch district where fodder supply from government side is already on. Drinking water supply is ensured through new bore-well, hand pump, Narmada water network and tankers. Relief works are connected to MGNREGA. Demands for MGNREGA coming from villages are granted by government.

Bokhiria said those dams where water level is good and there’s no immediate problem of drinking water supply are permitted for irrigation supply upto be paani(two waters, or water supply twice to area under irrigation coverage).

He said, like year 2012 even in this year, the state will not face problem of drinking water. Complains regarding water supply are responded promptly, he added.

Bokhiria said, as monsoon has arrived in north India, and as major part of the country has been cloudy recently, there are chances of arrival of rain in Gujarat too lately. Bokhiria said this when asked about failure of Indian Meteorological Department’s earlier prediction that Gujarat may receive rain by end of first week of July.