Drinking water diverted to lake for Modi to float diyas

For Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s grand celebration of the State Foundation Day on May 1, the Satyam Shivam Sundaram Trust is organisi...

For Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s grand celebration of the State Foundation Day on May 1, the Satyam Shivam Sundaram Trust is organising a grand spectacle: 43,000 diyas floating on Sursagar Lake, a thousand for each year of the state’s existence.

And to make that a success the Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) has for the past week been diverting about 3 lakh litres of drinking water daily to the lake. This is in addition to the water pouring into the lake from a bore well sunk next to it.

Centre owns up to ‘anomaly’ in Gujarat minimum wage scheme

NEW DELHI: A day before the Narendra Modi government spends crores of rupees to celebrate Gujarat’s 43rd birthday, Union Minister of Rural Development Ananth Kumar on Wednesday admitted that minimum wages were not being paid to rural labourers in drought-affected districts of the state and that the ‘‘anomaly’’ will be resolved within 10 days.

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Initiating the motion, Praveen Rashtrapal (Congress) said though the declared minimum wage in Gujarat was Rs 60, labourers working under the Sampoorna Gramin Rozgar Yojana (SGRY) and scarcity relief works were being paid less.

Kumar said the Gujarat government had fixed Rs 50 as wages to be paid for works under the SGRY, of which Rs 25 was paid in cash along with 5 kgs of wheat (valued at the BPL rate of Rs 5 per kg). But in the drought-affected districts, the state government was paying only Rs 36 in cash and 3 kg of wheat. As wheat is valued at Rs 2 per kg in these areas, the whole package works out to only Rs 42.00 — far less than the stipulated minimum wage. (Manini Chatterjee)

Complains Manjalpura councillor Chirag Jhaveri, ‘‘When we make representations that housing colonies need drinking water, the administration has no answer. And for a function like this, just to float some diyas, they are wasting drinking water!’’ Residents of many colonies complain that they hardly get water for 20 minutes. Pranav Patel, who lives in the ward, says: ‘‘As it is, we receive water supply at very low pressure. On top of that, this wastage. This is criminal.’’

The decision to release drinking water into the lake was probably taken after realising that water from the bore well — from which water has been pouring into Sursagar over the past three weeks — would not suffice.

Officials in the department say about 2.5 lakh-3 lakh litres had been diverted daily from the tank to the lake.

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However, city engineer V.N. Tailor said this was not hampering supply to colonies. ‘‘The diversion begins once the drinking water is distributed to all five zones, ’’ he says.

Only a few months ago, the administration had turned down requests to fill up the lake with drinking water for Ganpati Visarjan.

The man behind the Samiti organising the event, BJP MLA Yogesh Patel didn’t think there was anything wrong in using drinking water to fill up the lake. Congress councillor from Karelibaug, Paresh Patel, says: ‘‘We oppose the whole idea. But now that precious drinking water is being used up, we will protest.’’

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