• Work has stared in only 16 km of the 109-km Botad sub-branch canal and the remaining length will be taken up in 2006-07, and completed by 2008-09.

Construction at most of these projects has been delayed by at least one year in some cases and by more than two years in others, mainly due to slow progress of work. A heavy monsoon this year which damaged the lining of not only the canals under construction but also parts of the sub-branches which are ready, too has added to the tardiness.

PK Lahiri, chairman and managing director of SSNNL, admits that the work has been too slow. “Due to heavy monsoon this year, work could not go on at expected pace but we are late by six to eight months at the most,’’ he said.

But two months after the monsoon season, work has not started on some parts of the incomplete canals. Chief engineer Brahma Kshatriya, in charge of the Rajkot division which supervises Saurashtra’s sub-branch canals, said work is yet to start on Morbi, Limdi, Dhrangadhra and Botad sub-branch canals. “The work will be completed in one and half years,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, to bypass the hold-up, the state government is laying lengthy pipelines, turning the canal-based project into a pipeline-based one. However, this alternative may not be feasible, said Prof Indira Hirway, director at Centre for Development Alternatives, Gandhi Labour Institute.

A study by the Ahmedabad-based centre has found that more than a 1,000 villages in Saurashtra which are at the far end of the pipelines do not receive Narmada water regularly. Listing several reasons in a report to be published shortly, the centre has suggested that the whole idea of supplying water through pipelines needs to be reassessed. “The water does not always reach the villages which require it the most. Breakages, leakages and lack of pressure result in villages at the far end of the pipelines hardly receiving any water at all,’’ said Hirway.

... contd.