Rajasthan elections: Canal project heats up contest in desert state
According to the ground water board, 90% of the blocks in Karauli district were overexploited in 2022 with average water available at 550 feet below the surface
Karauli/Bharatpur: In Kasauli village in Rajasthan’s dry district of the same name, the prospect of a poor monsoon scares Sita Meena. “Scant rain means we have to leave our village for work,” she said. Fortunately, 2023 was better in terms of monsoon rains in eastern Rajasthan and Meena’s family did not have to migrate to Gujarat for work. Some others from the village did, though, as growing two farm crops in a year is difficult in the region compared to well-irrigated western Rajasthan.

Meena said water for drinking and irrigation is a poll issue and admitted that the level of ground water, extracted through borewells, is getting lower. In villages across eastern Rajasthan such as Bharatpur’s Sunari , locals complained of the government not taking care of water bodies to improve falling groundwater levels. “One-fourth of the village pond has been encroached by village strongmen. We have complained several times but nothing has happened,” said Bekhu Ram Jatav, 74, a Dalit.
According to the national ground water board, 90% of the blocks in Karauli district, where Meena lives, were over-exploited in 2022 with average water available at 550 feet below the surface. Of the 270 blocks in Rajasthan, the board declared 70% as over-exploited . “In our village, water is available at 600 to 800 feet,” Meena said. Except Dholpur, which falls in the catchment area of river Chambal flowing from Madhya Pradesh and has the Ram Sagar Dam, the ground water level in most districts of eastern Rajasthan is low, according to the board.
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The Rajasthan government’s data shows that the state’s total irrigated farm area in 2021-22 was 11.76 million hectares as compared to 10.71 million hectares in 2018-19 with the maximum increase in western parts of the state. For instance, the total irrigated land in Bharatpur division that falls in the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project area and covers six districts, increased from 1.43 lakh hectares to 1.45 lakh hectares during this period. In the same period, irrigated farm land area in Sikar division having five districts increased from 8.8 lakh hectares to 9.8 lakh hectares.
At Peepal Ki village in Dausa district, Lekhraj Gujjar said that poor availability of water is the reason for low crop production and backwardness of the region. “Western Rajasthan is doing better in agriculture due to irrigation through the Indira Gandhi canal and eastern Rajasthan has suffered as there is no irrigation facility,” he said, blaming the Congress government for not working on the Eastern Rajasthan Canal Project over the last five years.
ERCP POLITICS
According to the Rajasthan water resources department,the state, the largest by geographical area in the country, holds only 1.16% of India’s surface water and 1.72% of the ground water with significant regional disparity in water availability. Only the Chambal river basin adjoining northern Madhya Pradesh, has surplus water and the then BJP government in the state headed by Vasundhara Raje announced a plan to use this water through inter-basin transfers to 13 districts of eastern Rajasthan districts to provide irrigation facility to 2.8 lakh hectares of farmland.
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According to the detailed project report, ERCP is to cover 23.67% of Rajasthan’s area and 41.3% of the state’s population. In 2018, the Central government gave in-principle approval to the project and then CM Raje demanded the project to be declared as a “national project” so as to get substantial funding from the Central government.
After the BJP lost the 2018 elections, the politics over who would implement the ₹40,000 crore project that covers 83 assembly seats in the region started. In the 2018 assembly election, the Congress won 48 of these seats, and the BJP, 35 .
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While the Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government has blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led central government for not declaring ERCP a national project, the BJP has accused the state government of not initiating the project in five-years of their rule. Chief minister Ashok Gehlot claimed that in rallies in 2018, prime minister Narendra Modi promised national project status to ERCP. “I want to ask Gajendra Singh ji, why his ministry has not followed up on the promise of the PM,” Gehlot said at an election rally in Karauli last week.
Union Jal Shakti minister, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat has repeatedly accused the Rajasthan government of failing to submit requisite documents to get the status. In July , the Jal Shakti Ministry informed Parliament that it has received no formal proposal in the prescribed format from the Rajasthan government about the project, which was appraised by the Central Water Commission and approved by the Advisory Committee on Irrigation and Flood Control of the ministry.
Rajasthan technical education minister and Congress candidate from Bharatpur, Subhash Garg said the Jal Shakti Minister (Gajendra Singh) doesn’t want the project brought by former CM and BJP leader Vasundhara Raje to materialise. “The Gehlot government has sanctioned ₹13,000 crore for the project, whose work orders have been released. Now the people have to decide who is working in their interest,” he said.
Hitting back at the ruling Congress, Shekhawat accused Gehlot of doing politics over the project. “The BJP has always been keen on the project but the Gehlot government kept the project in cold storage for five years and is now doing politics over it. They have not submitted the requisite documents and the CM is doing only politics over the project. The Congress is trying to mislead the people,” he said.
BJP MLA and spokesperson Ram Lal Sharma said the Congress has always misled the people. “The ERCP project was BJP’s project and it will come on ground after a few months with the formation of the BJP government in Rajasthan,” he said. In the manifesto, the BJP has promised to implement the project with the help of the central government.
Political analyst Manish Godha said the ERCP has become the core issue in eastern Rajasthan, especially for the Congress. “Water is an emotional issue in Rajasthan in every election. The Congress has been trying to make it a political issue and the BJP is reacting to it. The verdict in these 13 districts will decide which party’s version the people believed in,” he said.
On ground, villagers can be heard blaming the Congress for not initiating any work on the project for five years. “When the state government can spend thousands of crore of rupees for freebies to woo voters before elections, why didn’t it start work on ERCP, which would have improved lives of lakhs of people here?” Meena asked.
