From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: Four senior Congress leaders from Gujarat on Wednesday opposed the Prime Minister’s plan of linking of four small rivers, including Par, Tapi and Ambika, with the Narmada to enable supply of water to Kutch and North Gujarat as impractical and alleged that it would only benefit some of his industrialist friends while depriving the tribals of water for drinking and irrigation.
Congress MP Shaktisinh Gohil, who led a press conference here, said Prime Minister Modi wants to cover up the BJP government’s failure to supply water from the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada by cooking up the new “jumla” of linking three rivers with the Narmada to reach water to 18 lakh hectares of land of the farmers.
The tribals of the region led by Navasari MLA and Sukhram Rathwa, leader of opposition in the Gujarat Assembly, built up a movement against the linking of the rivers since it would displace more than 50,000 of them and destroy the forest in South Gujarat.
The Congress leaders ridiculed Gujarat BJP president C R Paatil sense the tribals’ anger and outcry as last week he announced that the government is suspending the river linking project. “You announced the project, you gave it publicity and you are suspending it because of the locals’ protest, Gohil said while clarifying that the Congress is never against development projects but not to benefit a handful of persons at the cost of thousands of the tribals.
The Congress had got a survey of the river linking project in 2010, but it only showed that it is very difficult and harmful to take water against the natural flow. Even the Supreme Court and the High Court rejected such an attempt.
Opposition leader in Gujarat Assembly Sukhram Rathwa said the government is backing out of the project after the realisation that it would result in submersion of 50,000 tribal families. He said the government’s decision to put on hold the project stems from the fact of the Assembly elections in the state later this month and there is no guarantee that it would be launched after the elections. The attempt is to silent the tribals who built up a massive movement.
He said the Narmada water was supposed to go to Kutch, Saurashtra and Rajasthan, but it did not reach there. The Sardar Sarovar Dam was built to supply water for drinking and irrigation, but the new scheme is to supply water to the factories.
MLA Anant Kumar Patel said the tribals’ massive movement was to protect “adivasi asmita” that has come under threat from a score of new projects launched in the past three decades. He said the tribals’ ‘Satyagraha’ in the state capital of Gandhinagar will continue until the government removes supply of water to the industries as envisaged in the project cleared on March 2 with a budget of Rs 500 crore. He said the government is hoodwinking the tribals by claiming to suspend the project, but the the farmers will end their movement only after the Gujarat government brings out a white paper in the issue.
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