Narmada project will be completed by 2025 at Rs 79,000 cr, says minister

Stating that the Narmada project is nearing completion, the minister said that the Narmada main canal was initially 458 km long with a carrying capacity of 1,133 cubic metres per second.

“Its work was completed in 10 years… about 69,000-km long canal that will provide irrigation benefits to 17.92 lakh area has been completed in 20 years. This scheme is going to be completed in the year 2025 at a cost of about Rs 79,000 crore,” he said.

The minister added that the government has approved a scheme of Rs 103 crore for setting up innovative irrigation system to benefit around 4,000 farmers in an area of 13,884 hectares in 22 villages of Banaskantha district.

Mevani stated that of the 18 lakh hectares under Narmada project’s command, not more than 7-8 lakh hectare land has been irrigated by the project.

“More than 90 per cent of the catchment area of 85,000 square km is in Madhya Pradesh, while Maharashtra’s catchment area is 1,600 square km and Gujarat has a catchment area of 9,800 square km… Out of 28 million acre feet, 9 million acre feet water is given to Gujarat and remaining 18 million acre feet goes to MP. As per Gujarat government’s promises, by 2024-25, 18 lakh hectare land had to be irrigated with this water but unfortunately 50 per cent of this work is still pending. Due to this 10 lakh farmers are deprived of state government’s Sardar Sarovar scheme,” Mevani said.

In response to this, Health and Family Welfare and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rushikesh Patel said that 80 per cent of the drinking water requirement of the people of Gujarat is supplied by Narmada water. It includes seven cities, 199 towns and 11,777 villages. In terms of irrigated area, 205 dams of Gujarat and the Sardar Sarovar project alone irrigated almost similar area, which is 36 lakh hectares in total. Thus, the Sardar Sarovar project is contributing more than 200 dams, he added.

So far, a total of 32.48 lakh hectare area is covered under irrigation by the Narmada branch and other canals. The remaining canal network works after March 2023 are planned to continue during the year 2023-24, for which in the next financial year 2023-24 Rs 3,734 crore has been provided, he added.

Under a new initiative, the minister added that more than one lakh farmers will benefit through agricultural activities such as training, demonstration, farmer camps, soil health testing, etc., for which a provision of Rs 100 crore has been made.

On the achievements of the work done under the Sardar Sarovar Project last year, the minister said that in the current financial year, through River Bed Power House and Canal Head Power House, total 421 crore power units (Rs 4 per unit) have been produced worth Rs 1,684 crore. This is the highest power generation recorded in the history of Narmada scheme, he added.

“Apart from this, this year 4.13 crore units were produced from small hydropower plants on canals, making a total of 30.8 crore units. In the current year, from canal top and canal bank solar power plants of a total capacity of 25 MW, 20.70 crore units of solar powerhas been generated,” the minister added.