Bhavanbhai Patel stood facing his farm, as dry and cracked as his farming hands. The 65-year-old farmer lives in Dayapur village in Lakhpat taluka of southern Kutch, which has been receiving erratic rainfall since 2003. His farm comprises a few hectares of green, bright amid the sunburnt fields all around. "The rest belongs to my family, but now only I'm left here out of 10 brothers. Everyone else has gone," he told IndiaSpend in early February.Lakhpat is one of 10 talukas in Kutch, the least populated taluka of India's largest district spanning 45,674 sq km, covering 22% of Gujarat (196,024 sq km). Lakhpat residents keep leaving because, as Patel said, "there is no way to make a living here". He said his was a basti (hamlet) of 20,000 that is now down to 1,500 people.
"In places like Lakhpat, there is no water. Not even underground water is left that we could pull out and farm with," said Patel, weary after working for six hours.
Though 2018 was declared the worst monsoon season since 1901, Gujarat insisted it was not drought-hit until three months after the rainy season had passed. After months of terming its arid conditions as "water-scarcity", the state government declared drought in 51 talukas in 16 districts in a press conference on December 17, 2018. The declaration came two-and-a-half months after the state revenue department had declared drought and pointed out that conditions in five of 10 talukas in Kutch, including Lakhpat, had been assessed as 'severe'.
While the quantum of water is within the 11% limit set by the state government, during this time no water from the project was released for agricultural purposes for Kutch, which was the project's original mandate. "Ahmedabad is not part of the Narmada Main project," Rabari told IndiaSpend, referring to the NWDT's 1979 award on allocation of water between the four states.
Lakhpat taluka, where Patel lives, is not part of the Project's Command Area, SS Rathore, the chairperson of the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Limited (SSNNL), which executes the irrigation and power generation project, told IndiaSpend. This could mean Lakpat may never receive water from the project, say activists. However, they insist that the taluka and many other villages were initially part of the project's "command area", but have been removed after numerous revisions that are not reflected in the updated Command Area map currently available on the SSNNL website.
"The revisions [of the project's command area] are ad-hoc and not systematic," environmental activist Rohit Prajapati told IndiaSpend. "If an individual brings it up with the government or if there are industries coming up near a town, the government will revise the command area, saying it is to bring drinking water to people."
The revisions are not disclosed to the farmers and the people of Gujarat as they should be, Prajapati said, adding, "Today there is a water crisis so [the revisions are] coming to the surface, otherwise this would not even be known."
Three decades of relentless water extraction have left farmers with little by way of groundwater, and Kutch, a dry zone, has no other natural water source. "Earlier, at least we had some groundwater though we had to bore deep for it. Now, even that has dried up and the water we get by boring deeper is not usable for farming," Patel explained.
"Industry and factories get water. Mundra, Mandvi... where there are factories, there is water, there is a pipeline," Patel told IndiaSpend. "But for farmers, there is never water. The government doesn't want to give it."
Now, with the drought situation in Kutch so dire as to be called "possibly the worst since the drought of 1985 in Gujarat" by Kutch District Collector Remya Mohan, activists say the state government must answer why a project conceived primarily to provide irrigation is serving factories and cities.
At the same time, rainfall is becoming increasingly erratic. "The monsoon patterns have changed throughout Central India, due to deforestation and industrialisation. The monsoons winds have shifted eastwards to Western Ghat Sahyadri range. This has severely affected both Maharashtra and Gujarat," Kiran Kumar Johari, physicist and meteorologist working at KTHM College in Nashik, told IndiaSpend.
Back in Lakhpat, Patel, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) man, served as president of the RSS-affiliated farmers' union Bhartiya Kisan Sangh for 20 years, opined why providing adequate water to Lakhpat taluka's farmers is important for India. "Lakhpat and Rapar are [Pakistan] border towns. If they get water quickly, it's in the nation's interest to keep these areas populated with Indians," he said, adding, "At the same time, it will finally become possible for local farmers to make a living."
The state-owned Gujarat Water Infrastructure Ltd (GWIL) was constituted as a special purpose vehicle (SPV) whose mission is to provide drinking water to Gujarat. Because it is an SPV, it does not come under the RTI Act, Rabari told IndiaSpend, but he found that SSNNL supplies GWIL with water, which then distributes both drinking and industrial water, which is contrary to its mandate to supply only drinking water. "This is a big game that the government has played with the farmers," Rabari alleges.
However, Rupani's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been in power in Gujarat for over 20 years, Rabari pointed out. "The full drawing [Layout of the Project Command Area] and schemes and allocations had been done on the ground. Even farmers knew which khet would get water and which wouldn't. That's how much knowledge there was. So what happened?" he asked.
The report further pointed out that the Narmada Main Canal and its tributary channels (minor canals) were subject to water theft "by nearby cultivators who illegally lifted water from canals to irrigate their fields by using motor pumps".
"Farmers are desperate. They are looking at consecutive years of crop failure because of lack of irrigation facilities, which means their debts are increasing and cannot be paid, so there are people who install diesel-fuelled pumps to divert water," farmer and RTI activist Bharat Jhala told IndiaSpend.
"Only 25% of our population is left. We who are left are just waiting for rain… You know how Sabri-bai used to wait for Ram, that's how we wait for the rain," Sura said, alluding to the legend of Sabari, a local tribal woman whose guru told her that she would be visited by Lord Ram, a promise on which she waited for decades, setting out plates of berries every day in hopes of his arrival.
To alleviate distress among farm animals, the government brought "5,000 kilos of grass from outside", District Collector Mohan told IndiaSpend.
Sura and others said they have seen little of it. While the state provided subsidised fodder at Rs 2 per kg, the delivery came only once every two months. "We need 30-50 kg for every animal per month. The government gives 100 kg every two months, which is not enough to feed more than two-three animals. Every day a cow dies here. If you look around, you can see their carcasses scattered everywhere."
The government issues grass cards that allow animal rearers to pick up subsidised fodder, but for only five cattle at a time. Any villager with more has to move the extra chattel to a "neela gaon" (blue village, meaning one where there might be rain) in north Kutch. Since 2018 was a particularly bad year for the seasonal monsoon rains, most families took half or more of their chattel towards north Kutch in search of greener pastures.
"In the village, everyone has 5-10 buffaloes, so the village has about 10,000 animals. There's barely any water here so we can't grow grass and so we can't feed our animals. To keep them alive, every family takes half or more of the cows and buffaloes and migrates towards the northern areas of Kutch where there is more change of finding water," he explained.
"First there's the power plants--Adani and Tata. Then there are the mining operations. All the hot water goes into the sea. So at Kutch border, the fishermen are not getting fish anymore. They have to keep going further in boats that are not safe for beyond 15 nautical miles. And they have to go 40 or so nautical miles to get fish," Rabari said. "Often this is how our fishermen are caught in the Pakistani area. Sometimes without realising and sometimes as a risk they have to take. Some fisherman are dying like this."
To launch a fishing boat costs Rs 4-5 lakh, one villager told IndiaSpend, not wishing to be named. "So what can a fisherman do? If we don't catch something, we have no way to pay back the loans we take. So wouldn't anyone have to take the risk when the fish have migrated further?" he said.
Dependent on piped water supply, Kutch district is affected every time a line breaks down due to lack of maintenance or due to climate variables. "We depend on the [pipe]line, but that also breaks every few weeks. Right now it's been broken for four days and so we have not gotten any water. It's a regular thing," Sura told IndiaSpend.
Gujai Pani, an SSNNL employee in charge of overseeing the supply of water through these pipelines to 86 villages including Sayana, confirms Sura's statement. "In the last four days the pipeline has broken down twice," he told IndiaSpend.
Kutch receives drinking water from a branch of the Narmada project through a 91-km pipeline. "In the last four days the pipeline has broken down twice," says Gujai Pani, an employee of the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd, in charge of overseeing the supply of water through these pipelines to 86 villages including Sayana.
"We dig squares of 4 [cubic] metres and get paid Rs 200 for this. The wages are not paid daily but on the basis of work done, after it's inspected," 30-year-old Hajiani Jat explained. She and another woman Surmi Jat had not gone to work on the day IndiaSpend visited as they were feeling unwell and were frustrated because they had not been paid for 15 days.
"We live hand-to-mouth here. Right now I am taking loans to feed my family. Hopefully I will pay these back when my wages come," she said, nervously folding and unfolding her coarse hands.
Surmi's story is confirmed by a district administration functionary responsible for revenue collection, expenses, etc. of Kutch, deputy district officer Prabhav Joshi, who says her name appears on a list of persons who have not been paid wages. "We are trying to pay everyone as quickly as possible and in most cases we have managed to. But, there are sometimes unforeseen problems due to which a small number of villagers may not get wages on time," Joshi said. He shared the district's muster roll report from December 18, 2018 to January 1, 2019, which clock villagers' person-hours to calculate their wages. The list showed that, on average, some villagers from Ravareswar were owed more than Rs 2,500 each--enough to feed a family of four for eight days.
"Many corporates are doing very good work and have contributed to our fodder and water situation. They are also giving water to desalination plants etc.," says District Collector Remya Mohan.
Villagers and activists, however, disagreed. "Most industries make charitable trusts and then they misuse the funds for personal use and show it as a CSR expense," Rabari said, "Then they donate to government projects like the Statue of Unity and that's where the CSR ends."
"There are factories nearby, such as Sanghi Cement. They don't employ people from the village. The company had said that it would give the villages meetha paani [desalinated water] but instead they're taking all the water for their own use," said Pragji, the village sarpanch's brother, who goes by only one name. The sarpanch was away visiting another village under his jurisdiction.
"There are grey areas," said Mohan, "We tell corporates not to give us an eyewash, old photos and so on… [There] are people who are doing a lot of good work; there are people who are doing some but need to do more; and there are also people who are not doing anything."
"They [the state government] want to divert the water [from farmers to industries], and once the water reaches the farmers, to take it back will be political suicide. They understand that. So, they're delaying it so that water doesn't reach the farmers so ultimately they can say that no one is living there so why make a canal?" Rabari told IndiaSpend.
"On paper, Gujarat is a great state, it's really growing, but that's only true until you look at the actuals," Rabari said.
"The government's intention is that if water reached Kutch then the people who have left will come back to farm and then there will no place for industries to build their factories in this area," Lakhpat farmer Patel said.
"We have both big rallies and small protests regularly and the farmers get lathi-charged by the police. We also have no choice and neither do they, I feel," Patel said, "If no one is listening to the farmers then where will they turn, what will they do? They'll get frustrated and they'll take to the streets and the traffic stops. Then the cops come and lathi-charge us until we disperse."