Salinity 8212; Gujarat hopeful of WB aid

The state government is also exploring the possibility of creating a separate autonomous body to raise market borrowing to fund the various projects being implemented to prevent the salinity ingress in the coastal areas. 8220;Much remains to be done on the salinity ingress prevention front. We will need at least Rs 2,200 crore to solve this problem over the next 10 years or so, with an average annual spending of Rs 200 crore.

But the government has made budgetary provision of only Rs 41 crore for the Irrigation Department to carry out salinity prevention programmes,8221; said a senior official.

He said though the department had done good work on this front in several coastal areas of Saurashtra, a lot more remained to be done in the coastal region of Kutch and south Gujarat. The salinity ingress has adversely affected about 11 lakh hectares of land, mainly cultivable, turning the ground water saline over a period of time, the official said. The most affected coastal districts in Saurashtra are Bhavnagar, Jamnagar and Junagdh, while a 250 km-long coastal stretch between Malia and Lakhpat in Kutch is faced with the salinity ingress problem, according to the offical. In South Gujarat, the coastal villages in Valsad, Navsari and Surat districts are the worst affected.

The intrusion of salinity has not only rendered the vast span of agricultural land infertile, but also posed a drinking water problem. Sources say besides successive erratic monsoons, the excessive withdrawal of ground water by farmers is also a reason for the malady.