GANDHINAGAR, SEPT 16: The imprints of the monsoon floods are disappearing elsewhere but Gujarat is still hoping for the rains. If it doesn't rain, it's going to be another year of drought for the State, worse than the one that it saw last year.With just over 10 to 30 per cent water left in dams and reservoirs, it won't take more than a couple of months for Gujarat to hear the cries for water yet again.On September 12 last year, the live storage in the State's 174 dams was 7,012.99 million cubic metres against a total installed capacity of 14,994.48 million cubic metres. This time, the figure is 5,096.17 mcm - as much as 2,000 mcm less. Already, water tankers are seen criss-crossing as many as 328 villages, most of them in Saurashtra.Since it has rained sometimes in the past till September 15, the Government hopes for an encore. But official sources indicated that with the end of August, monsoons have left Gujarat and it does not seem probable that it will rain. This is why Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel has already asked departments concerned to pull up their socks.At present, as many as 53 dams are totally dry with not even a drop left, while only three dams in the State - Doswada, Jhuj and Kelia - are completely filled. None of them is in the scarcity regions of Saurashtra, Kutch and North Gujarat. The south Gujarat districts of Narmada, Bharuch, Surat and Valsad, as usual, are well off, with over 50 per cent storage of their capacity.The Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage Board member-secretary K B Patel admits that a serious situation is likely to arise and says a scarcity action-plan will be ready in a couple of days.Entire Gujarat, except the southern districts, received below average rainfall. This rain was sufficient to fill up the small check-dams but not the big dams and reservoirs, on which the State is mainly dependent for its drinking water and irrigation needs.Many officers blame the check-dams for the problem. They say that in Saurashtra, where the rainfall is always deficient, thousands of check-dams were built in the catchment areas of the big reservoirs. These check-dams trapped most of the rain-water, allowing very little to flow into the reservoirs.Bhadar dam in Rajkot, one of the biggest dams in Saurashtra, is a typical case. While check-dams in its catchment area were filled upto the brim, Bhadar has just the dead storage-level. In fact, officials of the Water Supply and Irrigation Departments were against the construction of too many check-dams in the catchment areas of the big reservoirs right from the beginning.Nearly half of the new 10,000 check-dams, which were set up during the past few months, were filled and helped recharge the groundwater at few places where it had rained. In those areas, the people are happy as they have enough water to tide over the season.Some areas, like Ahmedabad city and its surroundings, received very heavy rainfall, causing extensive flooding, but the water went waste as there is no dam or reservoir in these areas.
