TC Web Desk
In Gujarat, 50,000 women have written wrote postcards to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him to include the water bodies in North Gujarat’s Karmavad lake and Mukteshwar dam under the Narmada Command area.
The people in the Vadgam constituency of the state have been protesting for the past few months after the water levels in Karmavad lake and Mukteshwar dam declined. The water bodies are now running dry. Citizens have been demanding to replenish the water bodies with water from Narmada.
According to a report in Latestly, the water shortage in the area has become a major political issue with leaders disputing among themselves ahead of the state elections in December.
However, the issue of water shortage is not of the last two to three months. “People of this area have been crying foul for the last 30 years. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi is well aware about the water shortage in the Vadgam area, as the issue was raised before him when he was the chief minister,” said Ramesh Patel, leader of Karmavad and Mukteshwar Jal Andolan Samiti.
Patel, who is a farmer also, said that most of these villages are dependent on the monsoon. In addition, people rearing livestock contribute Rs.2,000 crore milk to the district cooperative every year. He said that if the two dried reservoirs are filled with water, this turnover can touch Rs.10,000 crore.
Patel insisted that if the state invests water lifting to fill these reservoirs, the underground water level will increase, agriculture will flourish, demands of tractors, diesel will increase and the state will earn good from taxes.
