Narmada water will be available to Kutch for irrigation by 2014, with the starting of construction work on the Kutch Branch Canal from Saturday.
Narmada water will be available to Kutch for irrigation by 2014, with the starting of construction work on the Kutch Branch Canal (KBC) from Saturday.
The state Narmada and water resources minister Nitin Patel informed the media about the latest developments in the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Project on Thursday.
"Chief minister Narendra Modi will be inaugurating the works on Saturday. Natives of Kutch will be coming from Mumbai in a special train for this function and they will also do 'Rajat-Tula' of the chief minister - weighing the CM with silver in a balance," he said.
Land acquisition for the canal network is rapidly moving ahead and all plans to make water available to the farms for irrigation will be completed latest by 2014, according to him.
Today around 3 crore citizens of Gujarat in 135 big and small cities were getting Narmada water for drinking and domestic purpose. Now, 75 works worth Rs4,375 crore had been finalised and other works of Rs3,400 crore under command area were in the tender process, he said.
The KBC will be 360 km in length with discharge capacity of 7,700 cusecs. More than 2.78 lakh acres of land in 182 villages of seven talukas of Kutch will benefit with water for irrigation, said Patel.
"Narmada's gravity ends at Banaskantha, so three big pumping stations will be constructed to provide water by way of lift irrigation at the cost of Rs1,265 crore. We have given the work contracts on EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) basis to big contractors, where there is a clause for maintenance of the canal for five years," he said.
He added that some part of KBC is passing through the wild ass sanctuary and Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam had to wait for two years for approval from the union ministry of forests and environment.
"We have made special arrangements, as per the approval of the ministry, to ensure that natural movements of wild ass (gudkhar) doesn't get affected because of KBC. We have made special structures for the wild ass to cross the canal in a 20-km area of the sanctuary. We have spent Rs7 lakh per wild ass in this area. The total cost for these special arrangements will be around Rs200 crore," said Patel.
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