Water Wars
The two BJP-ruled states are sparring over their share of Narmada water
With pressure mounting from neighbouring Gujarat for a greater share of Narmada water, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan finds himself in a spot of trouble. Assembly elections are due at the yearend, and giving in to Gujarat’s demand could be political hara-kiri.
The state’s farmers are already on edge. Western MP—irrigated by the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams on the Narmada—was the epicentre of the violent farmer unrest in June 2017. The move would also impact drinking water supplies in some 50 towns and 250 smaller riverside settlements.
The Gujarat government first flagged the issue in October 2017, and in a more recent meeting of officials of four states—MP, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra—in Delhi on February 9, demanded that MP release its full share of Narmada water. As per the original award apportioning the water, MP was to keep 18.25 MAF (million acre feet); Gujarat was to receive 14 MAF; and Rajasthan and Maharashtra 0.50 and 0.25 MAF, respectively. Gujarat claimed it had received only 4.71 MAF of its agreed quota.
At the Delhi meeting, MP refused to release more than the daily 14 MCM (million cubic metres) it was already releasing from the Indira Sagar dam. Meanwhile, the four states have allowed Gujarat to utilise water from the Sardar Sarovar dam’s ‘dead storage’ (reservoir water below canal outlets). Experts say this could only be a temporary solution. The issue this year is a consequence of poor rainfall in the Narmada’s catchment (in MP). As a result, all dams on the river—Bargi, Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar—are below capacity. Even at the Sardar Sarovar in Gujarat, the current water level is 110 metres, 5 metres below its expected level this time of the year. The crisis, some officials say, is “man-made” in part because of the untimely diversion of water from Sardar Sarovar to fill the Sabarmati twice last year—first during Japanese premier Shinzo Abe’s visit to Ahmedabad in September and subsequently to land Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s seaplane during the Gujarat assembly poll campaign. There is, of course, no official confirmation of this.
MP is strategically downplaying the issue. “There is no dispute with Gujarat,” says a government spokesman. In Gujarat, meanwhile, the government has been forced to stop the illicit withdrawal of water by farmers from the Narmada canal to ensure drinking water supply to downstream areas.
THE NARMADA WATER CRISIS, SOME SAY, IS PART “MAN-MADE”