Gujarat is on the brink of a disaster. Levels of usable water in its 202 reservoirs are at a 10-year low, leaving little of this precious resource for anything but drinking.

In past years, in January there would be around 48% usable water in the state's reservoirs. Even in January 2014, 39% was utilizable. However, in January this year, water available in the state's 202 reservoirs is just 24% of capacity. This means five months of rationed drinking water with not a drop to spare for agriculture or industry . Chief minister Anandiben Patel admitted as much at a function in Dwarka when she said that she could not spare water for agriculture till the 2016 monsoon.The pinch is already being felt in North Gujarat and Saurashtra.

The villains responsible for this grim situation is last year's erratic monsoon and poor water management by the authorities. Rains last year were 23% less than normal. Yet the government allowed the release of 79% of its reservoir capacity between August and December last year.

Today, 109 of the 202 reservoirs have less than 25% of utilizable water. This is expected to put tremendous pressure on precious groundwater in the state.

On December 23, 2015, four people, including a father and his son, were electrocuted while digging a bore-well at Satapar village in Jamjodhpur taluka of Jamnagar district. They hit an underground electricity cable while digging in the hope of tap ping groundwater for irrigation.

Sachin Oza, CEO, Development Suppor t Centre, Ahmedabad, says that in waterscarce states, a statutory water authority to regulate supply is a must or there will be conflicts over water between farmers and industry, and rural and urban areas. “Robust demand-side management of water resources is a must for Gujarat. The priority should be judicious irrigation methods to include more arable land, and ensuring that there is enough drinking water,“ says Oza. Of the 96 lakh hectares of arable land in the state, irrigation resources reach just 54 lakh hectares. These include 45,000 checkdams which irrigate 3.5 lakh hec tares, 2 lakh tubewells which irrigate 22 lakh hectares and 202 dams that irrigate 10 lakh hectares. A further 11.5 lakh hectares fall in the Sardar Sarovar project command area.

State agriculture minister who is on the water scarcity com mittee, Babu Bokhiria said, “The government has reserved 51 dams for drinking water.

Once the dams are ex hausted, we will supply water from the nearest Narmada pipeline to villages through tankers“.

(With inputs from Himanshu Kaushik and Vijaysinh Parmar)

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