'Gujarat to be water-deficient despite Sardar Sarovar'

The Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP), which is expected to irrigate drought-prone areas like Kutch and Saurashtra and bring water facilities to thousands of villages in the state, could still prove to be insufficient to counter the water crisis in the state, opine experts. This is due to the immobilisation of natural resources in the state.

"Water and energy are going to set the frontiers for the state. Even after Sardar Sarovar is reaped, we are going to be one of the most water-deficient regions of the world, "said YK Alagh, Chairman, Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA).

Quoting VB Patel, former chairman of the Central Water Commission of India, Alagh said, "Our per capita availabilities are going to be a quarter of the Falkenmark Index, which makes us worse off than Sahelian, Africa."

Sahelian is a semi-arid region of north-central Africa, south of the Sahara Desert. He added that land, water and energy would determine the sustainable development paths for the diverse agro climatic regions of the state.

Alagh was speaking at the fourth convocation of the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DAIICT) where nearly 400 undergraduate and postgraduate students received their degrees.

He also made a case to the graduating students to take up jobs in Gujarat or start their own ventures in the state.

"I genuinely believe that given the hard working people of Gujarat and their cosmopolitan institutions working on national and global plane, technology and management of real resource bottlenecks like water and energy will set the limits of growth and the achievement of our almost unlimited potential."