The water debate in Gujarat is meandering into various channels.
After a delayed and deficient monsoon, coupled with sub-normal groundwater tables and reservoir levels, created acrimonious spats, two amended Bills on water, passed recently in the Assembly, have lent their mite to them.
The Assembly on July 26 passed the Gujarat Domestic Water Supply (Protection) Bill, 2019, and the Gujarat Irrigation and Drainage (Amendment) Bill, 2019. While the state government says the amended Bills have been passed with the only aim of reducing water thefts in both domestic water supply and irrigation, others, including opposition parties and farmers, are wary of the legislation's intent.
The two amended pieces of legislation, among other things, have laid down the level of punishment for water thefts. For instance, the Bill on domestic water includes setting up a water appellate authority, which would be the custodian of all water sources and have the powers of a civil court. On the other hand, the Bill on irrigation and drainage enhances the punishment and fine for those stealing water from canals, which, many argue, happen to be farmers themselves.
“The availability of water is dwindling every day and it is the need of the hour to conserve and save as much as possible and use the available water judiciously, or else some areas in the state may not have enough for irrigation and domestic use,” Gujarat Energy Minister Saurabh Patel had said while tabling the Gujarat Irrigation and Drainage (Amendment) Bill, 2019.
However, Patel stressed the responsibility of the government to protect the water infrastructure. “Is it not the duty of the government to ensure that the infrastructure meant for the beneficiaries is not destroyed or misused?” Patel asked.
However, parties in the opposition have been crying foul.
“The government has brought in the legislation after failing to provide water for domestic use and irrigation. On its part, the state government is wasting water on seaplanes and similar projects. The two pieces of legislation are aimed at hiding the government's failures in water management and distribution and to create an environment of fear. In fact, from 2001 to 2019 no action was taken against industry for water thefts, whereas so many cases have been registered against farmers,” said Manish Doshi, spokesperson for the Gujarat unit of the Congress.
According to the state minister for water, Kunvarji Bavaliya, however, it is not the government’s aim to harass anyone. “It is not our aim to harass citizens or farmers but those anti-social elements who are disrupting domestic water distribution under local administrative bodies,” Bavaliya told Business Standard.
Experts say the state’s water management and distribution efficiency need to improve.
Y K Alagh, former Union minister and former head of the Sardar Sarovar Dam project, says the extent and efficiency of the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA) under the mega dam project, aimed at computer-controlled water distribution to even micro and sub-micro canals, needs to be enhanced.
Apparently, the Sardar Sarovar dam’s Narmada Planning Group document “Planning for Prosperity”, published by the government when Alagh was vice-chairman of the project, had laid out a plan to ensure computer-controlled last-mile water distribution. However, experts have argued the SCADA system's efficiency is nearly less than half, for want of a contractual agency to run it.
According to the project document, the SCADA system’s efficiency has been assessed at 67 per cent, which means for every cusec of water released, only 0.67 cusecs reach farms. Moreover, the computer-controlled system has not reached all the micro canals of the state.
“It is an advanced irrigation management system for computer-controlled canals but one-third of farmers are yet to get micro-canals embedded in the SCADA system. They are still dependent largely on groundwater and local reservoirs,” said an official.
If the state government data on water storage level is anything to go by, Gujarat is behind last year’s levels year-to-date (YTD). According to the Narmada, Water Resources, Water Supply and Kalpasar Department data, as of August 2, 2019, gross water storage levels in North Gujarat, Central Gujarat, and Saurashtra, excluding Sardar Sarovar dam, are short by 321 million cubic metres (mcm), 232.78 mcm, and 743.24 mcm, respectively, compared to the same day last year.
This puts farmers, especially in the Kutch, North Gujarat, and Saurashtra regions in the quandary because rain in these regions has not been optimum, forcing them to steal water.