Gujarat one of the most water-starved states in India: UN report

While BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's 'Gujarat development model' has caught the nation's fancy, a new United Nations (UN) report says Gujarat is one of the most water-starved states in India.

Updated on: Apr 8, 2014, 19:40:52 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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While BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's 'Gujarat development model' has caught the nation's fancy, a new United Nations (UN) report says Gujarat is one of the most water-starved states in India.

The UN World Water Development Report 2014 observes that unsustainable use of water for agriculture is the prime reason for the groundwater level falling in most parts of Gujarat.

"The issue of groundwater overdraft in India has been well-known for decades," says the report.

"In the state of Gujarat, free groundwater and subsidised electricity to pump it contributed to severe groundwater overdraft, near bankruptcy of the State Electricity Board, and poor power supply to farmers and other rural residents."

Questioning the state government's policy of subsidised power to water primarily for irrigation, the report says it is causing depletion of groundwater in most un-irrigated areas – leading to a severe drinking water crisis.

A 2012 report of the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) said more than half of the bore-wells in Gujarat had recorded a dip in the water level.

"Out of this, 28% wells have shown a fall in 0-2m range. About 12% of the wells have shown fall in 2-4m range and about 18% wells have shown fall in water level in more than 4m," said the CGWB report.

The board also highlighted in its report that the situation was grave in areas where agriculture was completely dependent on irrigation.

In the recent past, Gujarat has witnessed nearly 8-10% agriculture growth rate, among the highest in India, and one of the reasons is better irrigation facilities.

The UN report highlighted that providing subsidy in power to farmers was a reason for overdrawal of water from groundwater sources, sometimes to an unsustainable level.

"In Gujarat, one of the drier states in India, policies to ration farm power supply, and thus water supply, have been recommended to encourage farmers to use water more sparingly," the UNESCO report says.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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