By Pervez Bari, TwoCircles.net,
Bhopal: The Narmada Valley Development Authority, (NVDA), of Madhya Pradesh is thinking out of the frame to explore the additional possibilities to extend benefits of Narmada Valley reservoirs to the farmers not being covered under the projects.
The Vice Chairman NVDA Pradeep Bhargava put forth the idea of exploring additional possibilities to increase the command area under various reservoirs and directed Member (Engg.) V.K.Bhatia to lead a team of experienced irrigation, power and mechanical engineers to make extensive tours of reservoir areas for finding ways and means for this. He said that the team should also study the traditional way of carrying water to the fields and those means be taken into care for preparing effective and cost saving schemes to water the fields. He said that wherever lift of water is involved then requirement of power should also be calculated so that provisions for supplying power may be made in advance.
Bhargava informed that idea of creating additional irrigation potential has been implemented experimentally in Khandwa District. The villages on the periphery of Indira Sagar Projects would be facilitated by power supply to lift and carry the reservoir water to their fields. The installation of power line is on in the selected region in the form of garlanding the area. The scheme is designed to add about 12,000 hectare irrigation potential. Bhargava informed that the study to explore the additional possibilities to benefit the farmers would be done on Sardar Sarovar, Indira sagar, Omkareshwar, Maan and Shahid Chandra Shekhar Azad (Jobat) projects.
“We do hope that attempting this aspect, the collective command area from these reservoirs may be increased to about 2 lakh hectares in addition to the designed command area“, Bhargava added.
It may be mentioned here that there is no command area in Madhya Pradesh from S.S.P while the I.S.P has been designed to irrigate 1.23 lakh hectares, O.S.P for 1.47 lakh, Maan for 15,000 and Jobat for 9848 hectare irrigation.
Vice Chairman informed that to compress the time and to increase the accuracy NVDA is thinking to introduce new 3-dimensional survey technique for the future projects. Initially O.S.P canal phase-4 would be put under 3-D survey. If found suitable it would be introduced for future projects. He directed the officials to complete all formalities within time limit for proposed Sher, Shakkar, Machrewa, Doodhi, Morand, Ganjaal, Ataria, Raghavpur, Roosra, Basaania, Upper Budhner and Sitarewa projects so as to start their construction as per schedule. ([email protected])