To avoid land acquisition, state plans underground pipelines

According to the SSNNL officials, land acquisition for the sub-minor canals is a major issue as it can lead to a discontent among the people against the government.

SSNNL has invited Expression of Interest from various vendors for the project in a phased manner and the tender will close on August 30.

The officials sources said that the project is likely to begin by September-end and finish it within three to four years.

SSNNL sources said that once a group of around 30-40 vendors is selected to lay the pipelines, farmers’ groups will be involved in the implementation.

The farmers will be involved in every decision like selecting the vendors for their area and the manner in which the laying of the pipeline would take place.

A couple of years ago, SSNNL had made a public appeal in Gujarati newspapers inviting farmers’ cooperatives to join them for the work of sub-minor canals.

Under the said project, SSNNL was supposed to build sub-minor canal network of 48,058 km. Out of these, only around 10,000 km sub-minor canal network was completed. Recently, the government led by Anandi Patel put the sub-minor canal network issue in priority list after the Narmada Control Authority gave its nod to increase the height of Narmada dam till 138.68 metre.

The government has been under constant criticism of the Opposition for not completing the sub-minor canal network that would in essence take the benefits of the project to the farmers. The Narmada project has command area of around 18 lakhs hectare land.