By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net
Bhopal: A unique system has been introduced for Narmada Valley Irrigation projects in which the project would be able to provide irrigation water on upstream peripheral area which was not possible in prevailing project system built to irrigate the down stream areas through canals only. The new system would provide a power line along the periphery of the reservoir to facilitate the farmers of peripheral villages to lift the water for their fields through power pumps.
The Vice Chairman of Narmada Valley Development Authority, (NVDA), Pradip Bhargava giving details informed that the garlanding system has been introduced to cover the large arable area adjoining the reservoir periphery, which cannot be covered by any other means. He said that work on garlanding Indira Sagar Projects, (ISP), is ongoing where 11 KW power line would be installed along the periphery of ISP in Khandwa district.
It may be mentioned here that ISP is the biggest reservoir of the country with an area of 930.48 sq. km.
Bhargava said that ongoing ISP garlanding would facilitate irrigation to about 19,000 hectare of land benefiting farmers of 121 villages. A sum of Rs. 11.23 crores would be spent over the garlanding scheme.
He said that now a decision has been taken to implement garlanding scheme for Omkareshwar Sardar Sarovar, Maan and Jobat irrigation projects which have large arable areas along the periphery of the reservoirs. He said that survey would be started soon to prepare the detailed project report (DPR) for each project
Bhargava said that Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal, (NWDT), had allocated 18.25 MAF water to Madhya Pradesh. Out of the total allocated water 11.26 MAF has to be utilized through major irrigation projects under NVDA. Looking to the large target all possibilities of utilizing water would be exploited, he added.
He said that NVDA is very enthusiastic to implement garlanding system on each reservoir which would prove a boon to the farmers of adjoining villages. Garlanding irrigation would boost the kharif by 1.5 times and rabi production by eight times, he claimed. ([email protected])