Gujarat battling drought even as people struggle

By Manas Dasgupta

RAJKOT, APRIL 25. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the drought-hit people in Gujarat to make ends meet. If they spend their days in relief works to earn full wages, which is fixed at Rs. 40 per head a day, they often risk the chance of missing water tankers. And if they give priority to collect water, they face the prospect of a cut in their wages. Particularly for the women folk, who often have to trek between four and 10 km a day to collect potable water, earning full wages is almost impossible.

This is the scene in all the drought-affected villages, where more than 4.70 lakh people are engaged in about 5,600 relief works. There is no co-ordination between the timings of relief work - which are either between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. or 6 a.m. and 2 p.m. - and water supply.

The villages are virtually facing water-rationing, with the Government claiming to have ``increased'' the supply from 14 litres to 20 litres per person per day. Of the 157 group water supply schemes, about 70 have been completed on a war- footing, solving the problem in about 1,600 villages on a permanent basis. The rest are expected to be completed by June, supplying water for about 3,000 other villages. But over 2,000 villages are still being supplied water through tankers and a blueprint is ready to meet the requirements, even if the number of villages requiring tanker supply were to touch 4,500 in the coming weeks.

As a precaution, the Government has instructed the District Collectors in the affected areas to keep at least three tankers at any given time and maintain stand-by power generators to keep the borewells functioning. It has also been advised to keep three tankers in each of the worst-affected taluks as a stand-by measure to counter any mechanical failure of the tankers in operation. The Government has identified 39 agencies, to be available round-the-clock, for digging new borewells and tubewells or setting up hand-pumps wherever possible, if the existing sources dry up.

Water specials

Senior State Government officials held a meeting with representatives of Western Railways in Gandhinagar to discuss arrangements for Railway tankers to run about eight rakes a day, each carrying 1.70 million gallon litres of water from the Narmada and Mahi rivers and the Datarwadi and Moj dams, to hundreds of villages in Rajkot, Jamnagar, Amreli, Surendranagar and Bhavnagar districts of Saurashtra. If finalised, it will only be the second time in the history of the State to operate ``water trains.'' It was done the first time in 1986-87, when a point-to- point service was operated from Gandhinagar to supply water to Rajkot city.

The Government and the Railway officials have identified Mehmedabad station in Kaira, Rajula in Amreli, Bhatiya in Jamnagar and Vanthali in Junagadh district, as the filling stations for the water tankers. They are also in touch with officials of the Steel Authority of India for borrowing its captive railway siding at Khodiyar on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, to be used as the fifth filling station if need be.

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