Flood water for irrigation in Rajasthan
Nov 23, 2006 - 12:50:53 AM
, Reviewed by: Priya Saxena
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The Rajasthan High Court had rebuked the state government regarding the slow water draining out exercise in Kawas due to which people of the area have to sleep in the open on sand dunes.
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By Indo Asian News Service,
[RxPG] Jaipur, Nov 22 (IANS) Failing to completely drain out flood water even after three months from Kawas in Barmer district, the Rajasthan government is using it for irrigation.
Kawas was one of the worst flood-hit areas in the state.
'The state government has decided to provide this flood water to over 450 farmers for irrigation on condition that they would go in for sprinkler irrigation,' C.K. Mathew, Rajasthan relief secretary, told IANS here.
These farmers had earlier requested the government to provide this water for irrigation.
'We have already installed five pumps for the purpose and if need be we would increase it further by two-three pumps,' he added.
Mathew claimed that only 10 percent of the total water is still left in the area, which would soon be taken out.
'The area had over 3,000 MCFT of water before we took up the draining out exercise and now it is only 300 MCFT,' the relief secretary said.
The main difficulty in draining out water is the presence of gypsum found in abundance, which is not allowing the water to percolate down.
The state government after spending an amount of Rs.5 million has been able to undertake water removal exercise in only 5.2 sq kms of area while 12.87 sq km is still water logged as per a recent study conducted on the satellite photograph of Kawas taken few days back.
The Rajasthan High Court had rebuked the state government regarding the slow water draining out exercise in Kawas due to which people of the area have to sleep in the open on sand dunes.
Barmer, which is usually drought prone, was hit by one of the worst flash floods in the third week of August. Over 104 people lost their lives in the massive floods, 800,000 people out of a population of two million were affected and over 45,000 cattle perished.
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