SUSTAINABLE WATER RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT
THROUGH INTEGRATED RIVER BASIN MANAGEMENT ON
SABARMATI RIVER BASIN OF INDIA

B.J. PARMAR - O.T. GULATI

1.0. CONCEPT

The optimum and sustainable water utilisation has been the endeavour of the planners all over the World including India to fulfill the multiple increasing demands of water. In recent times, the Integrated River Basin Planning and Management has been considered as a strategy to achieve the objective of optimum and sustainable utilisation. The river basins are inherently complex dynamic systems comprising many inter-dependent and inter-related components. Developmental activities undertaken without full consideration of the regional, social, environmental and economic implications can have adverse impacts. By including all the components into a basin plan, the development and management objectives can be accomplished in a better way.

The National Water Policy of India as adopted in 1987 also recommends the resource planning for a hydrological unit on basin basis.

In this context, the Integrated River Basin planning and Management approach offers :

Ways of understanding resource system as a whole with emphasis on the inter-actions and inter-dependencies between its parts ;

A broad view of objectives, goals and the criterion by which the alternative plans will be evaluated ;

systematic and effective ways to deal with the complexities ;

Practical approaches to decisions making with multiple objectives, and

A frame work to guide the specific actions of detailed project planning, construction and operation.

 

2.0. SABARMATI RIVER BASIN

The Sabarmati river basin is one of the few classic river basins where all sorts of phenomena associated with water sector like water scarcity, increasing water demand for multiple uses like irrigation, industry and domestic; conflicting demands, inter-sectoral conflicts, intra-sectoral conflicts etc. are occurring. River Sabarmati is one of the major West flowing river of Gujarat which originates from Arravali hill ranges in Rajasthan and meets the Gulf of Cambay after travelling 371 Km. from the origin. The Sabarmati basin has a maximum length of 300 Km. and maximum width of 105 Km. The total catchment area of the basin is 21.674 Sq.km. out of which, 4124 Sq.km. lies in Rajasthan State and the remaining 18550 sq. km. in Gujarat State. The Sabarmati basin in Gujarat region covers parts of the districts of Banaskantha, Sabarkantha, Mehsana, Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad and Kheda. The basin is densely populated covering nearly 43% of the basin population in urban areas and the population as per 1991 census in Gujarat State is 9.285 million. Basically, the basin is a highly exploited basin having rapid growth in all the sectors of economy and hence, its water resources, surface and sub surfaces are continuously under strain.

The surface water resources of the basin have been estimated as 1694.3 Mm³ and the possible ultimate utilisation has been estimated as 1087.22 Mm³ Similarly, the ground water estimates for the Sabarmati basin are as follows:

(Mm³ /YEAR)

1. Utilizable recharge

(85% if gross recharge) 2095.70

2. Drinking water provision 369.93

3. Gross ground water draft 2436.66

4. Net draft (70% of gross draft) 1705.62

5. Ground Water Balance 390.15

 

The basin falls in the hot arid/semi arid region of the western India. The rainfall pattern within the basin is uneven and erratic with nearly 95% of the average rainfall occurring during monsoon months from July to October.

Any situation of water availability less than 1000 m³ per capita is considered by the International Agencies as scarcity conditions. The average water in the availability in the Sabarmati basin is 360 m³ per capita which is the lowest in India (1991 census). Similarly, the average annual water availability per ha of culturable area is 2455m³ which is second lowest in India.

The basin is highly exploited in its water resources front with several conflicting demands. The conflict occurs in drinking water demand (water supply to Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar cities versus fluoride affected villages of North Gujarat) agricultural demand (demand of the direct command of Dharoi project versus demand of indirect command of Kharicut, and Hathmati D Zone and Fatewadi).

The condition of the ground water table in district Mehsana, just west of the basin has attracted a lot of attention of the geologists and hydrologists. These areas of moderate to limited aquifers and recharge conditions have been subjected to withdrawals much larger than what they could sustain, resulting in serious decline in ground water levels as well as yields of all aquifers, whether phreatic, semi-confined or confined over the past 25-30 years.

The quality of drinking water is also found to be deteriorated due to (1) excessive fluoride; (2) excessive total dissolved solids, (3) excessive nitrate, and (4) excessive salinity. As per 1991 census, there were 4120 villages in the State which are affected due to above mentioned problems, out of them, 921 villages are located in the Sabarmati river basin.

The glaring example of the increasing scarcity and conflict can be seen from the fact that approximately 15,000ha area in Fatwadi commands and lands on Sabarmati river banks on downstream of Ahmedabad city in irrigated by the partially treated domestic sewerage disposal of Ahmedabad city in winter season for which, there is increasing demand and conflict within farmers group.

3.0. Integrated river basin planning & management

For the sustainable and optimum utilisation of its available water resources, the river Sabarmati basin has been taken up by the State of Gujarat for integrated river basin planning and management under Indo French Bilateral Programme.

French system is, basically founded on the following features:

(i) Water users pays for the water he is using and polluter pays for the water quality deterioration he is causing. The system is structured in such a way that it takes into account the capacity to pay for each category of users (domestic, industrial and farmers for irrigation).

(ii) The water resources development and management is financially self sustaining. The water charges are proposed by the Agency’s Board of Directors and later on agreed upon by the River Basin Committee. Since elected representatives and N.G.os are also members of the River Basin Committee, there is general consensus on the water charges and recovery of water charges is very satisfactory.

(iii) More than 90 per cent of the money collected is afterwards redistributed under the form of financial assistance (loans and grants) either for pollution control actions or for the development of water resources and their sustainability.

The French system is more independent and transparent in nature.

The main objective of integrated river basin management in river Sabarmati basin is to form River Basin Committee represented by the elected bodies and all the water users of the basin. The main function of the River Basin Committee is to support and implement the River Basin Development Policy. The main principle behind forming the River Basin Committee is to decide the norms for « Polluter pays » and « Users pays ».

The main works to be performed under the pilot project are as follows:

 

1. Creation/formation of River Basin Observation Center-Data Base, to obtain good knowledge of the water related issues at basin level;

2. To formulate Master Plan for Water Management: The Master Plan will take into account the knowledge of the environment and of the various uses of water as envisaged in the data base as under:

 

i) Technical aspects (definitions of water quality objectives, technical Master plan and financial assessment, specific survey of industrial pollution);

ii) Setting up of appropriate river basin bodies;

iii) financial and economic aspects.

3. Strengthening of the local training capacities and documentation strengthening;

4. Training and information (seminar, training sessions in France and in Gujarat State);

5. General Co-ordination (presence of a French Expert on a permanent basis for the whole duration of the programme).

The entire proposal has been laid out by the State of Gujarat and International Office for Water, France.

 

Success of the proposal depend on the following :

1. Creation of active River Basin Agency (comprising one-third members from local elected bodies, one third members from concerned Government Department/Corporation/Boards/NGOs etc.);

2. Establishment of new mechanism for collection of water charges and development and maintenance works at river basin level.

3. Modifying the existing water rates, penalty rules for illegal water uses and river pollution etc;

4. Active involvement of all the concerned departments;

5. Success of this Pilot Project proposal will also accelerate the interest amongst other State of India too. It is hoped that this pilot project would be of immense use and beneficial in promoting the concept of integrated river basin management in India.