Water returns to Saurashtra

Ahmedabad, Nov 8 (IANS) It’s a happy homecoming for the farmers of Saurashtra. Faced with scarcity of water they left their land and profession. But today, thanks to a new water management system employed by the state government, a reverse migration is in progress.

‘I left with my family for Surat in 2002. My land was fallow for lack of water. My two sons began earning Rs.15,000 at a diamond polishing factory. I returned early this year after seeing plenty of water in the check dams in the region,’ says Kanubahi Rambhai Suva, 62, of Khaki Jalia village.

He owns 15 bighas (about nine acres) of land in Upleta taluka (sub district) of Rajkot district in the parched Saurashtra region of Gujarat. Upleta is on the banks of the Moj river 300 km from here.

Today Suva has harvested 675 kg of genetically modified Bt cotton, fetching him Rs.15,000 per bigha. After cotton he plans to sow wheat. His earning works out to Rs.150,000 per annum.

Suva is one of the farmers who have set the trend of reverse migration.

Along with Suva, 25 families had left Khaki Jalia village. Except for five families all are back in their native village.

As a result of water management there has been a change in the lifestyle of the farmers, says Dhavnat K. Suva of Kakhi Jalia. ‘Today most of us have motorcycles and are prosperous. You can see the prosperity. I was cultivating sugarcane 20 years ago. Water scarcity made me venture into business. Now I am back to my old cultivation and am happy.’

There are 30,000 small check dams and 300 large ones built in Saurashtra.

Today there are 35 check dams, including a couple of large ones, on the Moj river’s 50 km stretch. Check dams store water throughout the year and help in irrigation when rains fail.

‘Earlier it was very difficult getting water for even one crop in a year. Now we have three crops,’ says farmer Maldebhai Bodar of Sevantara village who owns 50 bighas of land.

These check dams help irrigate 600 hectares directly and 1,000 hectares indirectly in a 4-km radius, Jayanti Patel of Kolki village of Upleta taluka said.

In 2001, 12,000 check dams were built in Gujarat. Today there are over 100,000 small and big check dams, with the irrigation department and other government agencies playing a major role in their construction.

Of 5,600 villages in Saurashtra, 3,000 villages have small and medium check dams while there are 300 large check dams in the region.

‘Three hundred more check dams will be built on big rivers in Saurashtra at a cost of Rs.15 million by 2009 end,’ said Irrigation and Urban Housing Minister Nitin Patel.

‘Work on 60 big check dams will begin after Diwali on 80:20 basis (80 percent cost to be incurred by the state government),’ Patel had told IANS.

Saurashtra has 70 rivers. In 30 of them check dams have been constructed. Now 3,000 villages have 30,000 check dams. Of the seven districts of Saurashtra, most check dams are in Jamnagar followed by Bhavnagar, Amreli, Junagadh, Rajkot and Porbandar.

Surendranagar is covered by the Sujalam Sufalam scheme that brings in water from the river Narmada. Yet, it has 71 check dams.

‘It is not enough if good rains are there. What is required is availability of water at the right time. During 1994-95 there was more rain than today, yet the crop output has gone up now,’ said former agriculture minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama during whose tenure the maximum check dams were built.

http://www.sindhtoday.net

Desertification of Terai region of Nepal

Every day, 2000 trucks have been exporting sand and stone to India from Kanchanpur to Maorang. Nowadays, by the side of the southern boarder of Nepal, government of India is constructing highway. Stone and sand are cheap in Nepal, so Indian contractors are buying it materials from Nepal. Export will certainly help to Nepali economy. However, it will increase desertification of Terai.

One truck can carry 20 cubic feet, in average, construction materials. Hence, everyday, 40 thousand cubic feet materials have been exporting India. Nepali exporters are earning Rs 21,500 profit per truck. Therefore, this is very attractive dealing for Nepali. Export permission is granted by District Development Committee, Forest Office and Customs office. All government agencies are concentrating only from economic perspective. Nobody is focusing impact of export on environment of Chure and Terai region.

Level of river is deepening in some areas of Terai region. Irrigation system is not working in Butwal areas due to low level of water in some river. Next year, these problems will be increased rapidly in other parts also. In addition, breadth of river is increasing in Terai region.

Chure area is fragile from the point of geological point of view. Its structure is weak. Nowadays, people started to take out stone from this reason. During rainy season, rivers which are flowing from these areas may leave soil and other debris in terai region. Agriculture land will be filled with such a unnecessary materials. In the end livelihood of farmer of terai region will be very much painful.

Government has made plan to implement Integrated Watershed Programme in Chure area. It has purpose Chure-Terai development programme. On the other hand, National Park and Wildlife Act and Regulation mentioned that only local people can use forest resources for their use only, not for commercial purpose. According to act, wood, stone are forest resources. People can not take these resources outside that area. It clearly shows that act has not given permission to use forest resources for commercial purpose.

It is time to study the situation of Chure-Terai region and find some area and quantity which can be taken or extracted. However, it would affect less for environment. On the other hand, revenue should be increased by making competition among buyers. Nevertheless, sustainable development should be prime concern.

Long-Term Solutions For Low Water

What rivers and reservoirs are telling us: Plan ahead
Great ideas — from using treated waste water for irrigation to designing buildings so they capture rain for watering the surrounding landscape — are generally ignored as cities and counties build their own buildings

The ways to solve water problems in the short term run the gamut from inconvenient to draconian, depending on how bad the problem is allowed to get. Start with restricting use voluntarily. If that's not sufficient, go to mandatory restrictions. Impose fines on those who don't fall in line and make them more and more painful as necessary to win compliance. The next step is rationing — it's extreme, but one communities out West are familiar with.

In the long run, of course, we can plan ahead to make sure our water needs are met. That requires a combination of making sure there's adequate supply and taking steps to rein in demand.

We're surrounded with reminders of why we need to plan long term, as communities take short-term measures to try to bring demand in line with diminished supply. Up in the Richmond area, low water levels in the James River have prompted water restrictions. In one county, residents can't use a sprinkler on an established lawn. James City County is looking at restricting boating and fishing at the Little Creek Reservoir, as it did last winter, because the water level has fallen so far. That's in part because the Waterworks is having to draw more from it, since the flow in the Chickahominy River — the area's main water source — is so low you'd have to go back to the World War II era to see it so bad. The Waller Mill reservoir is low, too.

Ask officials why, and they point to the weather, to longer and drier summers. If that pattern prevails, it'll have a significant impact on our water situation and ratchet up the importance of long-term solutions.

But they take time and money, lots of time and money. Newport News has already invested two decades and millions of dollars on preparing for the King William Reservoir, which will provide a secure long-term water source for the region — and we're nowhere near ready to turn the tap.

It's fair to say that the region hasn't been nearly as on the ball when it comes to managing the other side of the equation: consumption. Great ideas — from using treated waste water for irrigation to designing buildings so they capture rain for watering the surrounding landscape — are generally ignored as cities and counties build their own buildings, and decide what they'll require, or encourage, of private builders. James City displays the right spirit with a nice program of incentives to encourage residents to make choices that cut water use, from drought-tolerant plants to water-efficient dishwashers. That protects the aquifer and sends a message people need to hear more often about how to tamp down demand. But the county doesn't have much company, and a lot of potential for water savings is left unexplored in this region.

When it comes to the supply side, there aren't a lot of options. It's easy for opponents to take pot shots at the King William Reservoir, and their doing so is one reason it's been so long in coming, but there aren't many alternatives for meeting our long-term needs. Desalination doesn't seem to be feasible on the scale we need. Ground water is a source under pressure, and James City is worrying about whether the state will allow future withdrawals at the level its growth will demand. Those longer, hotter summers sure won't help.

The ultimate solution, if supply and demand don't line up, is refusing new connections to the water system — new homes and new businesses. That is not a healthy place for a community to be, but it's a place some communities across the nation are finding themselves as they see water levels fall in their rivers, lakes and aquifers.

No one's talking about that around here. But if we don't secure our long-term supply and rein in unnecessary consumption, we might be.

People to hydropower

Initially caught off-guard by Nepal's constituent assembly election results, New Delhi is hoping to do business with a Maoist-led government especially on water resources.


Publicly, the Indians say they are happy with whatever result, but there seems to nervousness about Maoist policy on strategic issues like water, power and geopolitics.


Some people seem to think we were caught by surprise with the result, says Shyam Saran, former ambassador to kathmandu and ex-Foreign Secretary, but Indian doesn't play favorites in Nepal. We can do business with any political dispensation.


but past Maoist pronouncements, including an interview y Pushpa Kamal Dahal in 2000 in which he boasted the Maoists would fight the Indian Army if necessary and frequent references to Indian expansionism in Dahal's campaign speeches haven't helped allay Indian unease.


When the Maoists won the election, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs nearly cancelled a previously-scheduled conference here in the Bihar capital to discuss Indo-Nepal relations. Even though some high-profile guests and speakers dropped out, the meeting went ahead as scheduled on 26-27 April.

Saran and Indian State Minister for Commerce and Power Jairam Ramesh stayed for the whole two-day conference attended by 40 invited participants from Nepal. The Nepali delegation was headed by Minister fro Physical Planning g and Infrastructure, Hisila Yami, and also included Maoist leader CP Gajurel.


Bihar is suffering a crippling power shortage this summer, and the Ganges is almost dry. But in a few months, as every year, most of the state will be inundated by floods. It wasn't surprising, therefore, that a recurrent theme at the conference was water and power.


In Bihar we only think of Nepal during the monsoon floods, quipped Nitish Kumar, Bihar's chief minister in his keynote address. "We have common problem of poverty and we can tackle that by mutual cooperation on the Kosi High dam." How to deal with displacement of people in Nepal the Kosi's massive silt load was not broached.


Yami didn't want to be dragged into specifics, but responded: People on both sides of the border would benefit from transparency and accountability in political and economic commitments…particularly in the areas of flood control."


Kumar saw storing monsoon runoff on Himalayan high dams as mutually beneficial. BUt given perceptions of unfair treatment on Kosi and Gandaki in the 1960s, India may need to do more build trust among Nepalis about river sharing. It didn't help that Indian officials kept urging Nepal to follow the "Bhutan model".

In the past six month two Indian private companies have signed MoUs for the 300MW Upper Karnali and 400 MW Arun III. Adding West Seta and Budhi Gandaki, the total power agreement with India would go up to nearly 1800MW.


Minister Ramesh was optimistic that all this would lead to bigger and better things. "We are no longer talking about a pie in the sky," he said, "we have made progress and a final push on joint projects by the new government is all that is required."


Ramesh tried to assure Nepali visitors that India was no "coveting and salivating" over Himalayan rivers, but would like to see mutual cooperation also benefit Nepal with power, irrigation and balance of payments. "One major project exporting power to India would wipe out Nepal's trade deficit with India," he said.


Saran echoed the view. "Nepal has to start seeing India not as a threat but as an opportunity, you are next door to a country of o0ne billion growing at eight percent with which you have an open border, "he said, "Nepal is not India-locked, it is India-open."


Participants said India-Nepal economic cooperation has suffered because Nepali nationalism is often defined by anti-Indianism. Former JNU professor S D Muni advised the Maoists not to fall into that trap.

"The new rulers of Nepal don't have to fall back on that nationalist agenda and India should't try to play pawns and bishops in Nepal."


Seven years ago when India's Power Trading Corporation's Tantra Naryan Thakur came to Nepal to explore electricity import prospects, he remembers Nepali officials assuring him that Nepal could export 150 MW by 2007. "Today, Nepal is buying power from India," Thakur told the conference.

But he said India's demand for power would grow to 2000,000 MW by 2018. If Nepal could fast track projects to generate juist 10,000MW in ten years, consume 2,000 MW itself and export the rest to India it could earn $2.7 billion a year, Thakur said.

Foreign investors in Nepal, however, say they need to feel that they are not wasting their time. Dabur Inda is one investor which has stuck it out in Nepal through the conflit years. It's CEO, Udayan Ganguly said: "Nepal needs to create the right atmosphere for investors by resolving labour issues, violence and insecurity. Unless swift action is taken, the few investors that remain may decide it's not worth it."

Kunda Dixit in Patna

-Nepali Times weekly

WATER OR COKE?

WATER

1. Many people around the world chronically dehydrated.

2. Many people thirst mechanism is so weak That it is mistaken for hunger.

3. MILD dehydration will slow down one's metabolism by 3%.

4. One glass of water will shut down midnight hunger pangs For almost 100% of the dieters according to University of Washington study.

5. Lack of water, the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue.

6. Research indicates that 8-10 glasses of Water a day could significantly ease backand joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.

7. A mere 2% drop in body water can trigger fuzzy short-term Memory, trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on The computer screen or on a Printed page.

8. Drinking 5 glasses of water daily decreases the risk of Colon cancer by 45%, plus it can slash the risk of breast Cancer by 79%., and one is 50% less likely to develop Bladder cancer. Are you drinking the amount of water You should drink every day?

COKE

1. In many states the highway patrol carries Two gallons of Coke in the trunk to remove blood from The highway after a car accident.

2. You can put a T-bone steak in a bowl of Coke And it will be gone in two days.

3. To clean a toilet: Pour a can of Coca-Cola into the Toilet bowl and let the "real thing" sit for one hour, Then flush clean. The citric acid in Coke removes Stains from vitreous China.

4. To remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers: Rub the bumper with a rumpled-up piece of Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil dipped in Coca-Cola.

5. To clean corrosion from car battery terminals: Pour A can of Coca-Cola over the terminals to bubble Away the corrosion.

6. To loosen a rusted bolt: Apply a cloth soaked in Coca-Cola To the rusted bolt for several minutes.

7. To bake a moist ham: Empty a can of Coca-Cola into The baking pan, wrap the ham in aluminum foil, and bake. Thirty minutes before ham is finished, remove the foil, allowing the drippings to mix With the Coke for a sumptuous brown gravy.

8. To remove grease from clothes: Empty a can of Coke Into the load of greasy clothes, add detergent, and run Through a regular cycle. The Coca-Cola will help loosen Grease stains. It will also clean road haze from your Windshield.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION:

1. The active ingredient in Coke is phosphoric acid. It will dissolve a nail in about four days. Phosphoric Acid also leaches calcium from bones and is a major Contributor to the rising increase of osteoporosis.

2. To carry Coca-Cola syrup! (the concentrate) the Commercial trucks must use a hazardous Material place Cards reserved for highly corrosive materials.

3. The distributors of Coke have been using it to clean Engines of the trucks for about 20 years!

Now the question is... Would you like a Coke or a glass of water?

Now the question is, would you like a glass of water? Or Coke? Dr. Leo Rebello www.healthwisdom. org
R.AjayanConvenerPlachimada Solidarity CommitteePh:- Res 0471-2730464Mob- 09847142513

Res Add - Neerajam, Kudappanakunnu,

Trivandrum-695043 Kerala, India

Ist World Aqua Congress- First Announcement

Water is probably the only natural resource to touch all aspects of human civilization- from agriculture and industrial development to cultural and religious values embedded in society.
Koichiro Matsuura, Director General, UNESCO

July 23, 2007
Dear Sir,
Aqua Foundation is a non-governmental organization which undertakes all necessary initiatives for scientific and social knowledge creation and diffusion regarding water and its vital role in human survival and development.
Aqua Foundation educates people about the sustainable use and conservation methods, so that all kinds of water, water-based resources and aquatic ecosystems get priority protection. Initiatives required for inculcating accountability, motivation and dedication for the said cause are prominent on the Foundation's agenda. The Foundation is working towards understanding the issue of water pollution and its prevention.
Aqua foundation is pleased to announce World Aqua Congress-2007, to be held at Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi, November 28th to 30th, 2007.
World Aqua Congress will provide a common platform to decision makers, policy and law makers, users, technology providers, service providers and stake holders. The congress will initiate a process of ensuring best possible management of this scarce resource.
Through this letter we seek your support and co-operation for this noble cause. We invite your organization working towards the cause of water to become Sponsor/ Associate Organization of the congress. This support will reinforce your organization’s commitment towards this high priority issue, motivating many more organizations like ours to initiate programs and actions for a better tomorrow.
The details of the congress are available at www.worldaquacongress.org. It would be a pleasure to meet you in person and discuss various options of association/ cooperation.
We look forward to your support and kind co-operation.
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully,
Pragya Sharma
Co-organizing Secretary