IN September 2013, the member secretary of the Gujarat Water Supply and Sewage Board declared Gujarat a water surplus state. Speaking at a national conference, he stated that all villages should get 50 litres per capita per day (LPCD) of water, while each city should get 140 LPCD as per government norms, but in Gujarat we are now providing 100 LPCD of water to every village and 150 LPCD to every town as per government norms. It is on the basis of figures like these that the BJP projects Gujarat as a model of inclusive development

But this image is built through an aggressive campaign that does not match the ground realities of the state. In fact the patterns of water use in the state show that farmers and workers are deprived of the basic necessities of life and that corporate projects corner the benefits of all water resources. This once again proves that the Gujarat model of development is anti-people and backed by corporate interests.

THE POOR

ARE THIRSTY

According to the data provided by the government of Gujarat, 131 towns and 8200 villages are connected to the water supply gird in the Sujalam Sufalam project of the state government. By this standard the villages of Gujarat should be facing no water shortage but continuous supply of water, as claimed by the government. This expansion of the water supply grid is done through public-private partnerships (PPP) where companies like ESSAR Engineering are given projects to do the bulk supply of water and lay the pipelines. But even though the infrastructure may be in place through corporate partnerships, the rural and urban poor of the state remain without water. If the official data of the Gujarat Water Supply and Sewage Board is to be believed, more than half the districts of the state are facing water crisis. The situation of the ground water exploitation in the state is as shown in the Table alongside.

Source: Gujarat Water Supply and Sewerage

The Table shows that almost nine of the 16 districts have water crisis and that the future of water supply is bleak in the state. In addition to this, studies also show that the overuse of water has resulted in extreme salinity in most regions and therefore several regions do not have portable drinking water. As per the Census 2011, only 40 percent of the people in Gujarat get treated safe water whereas 30 percent of the people had untreated water. It is also significant that despite the claims of the government more than 40 percent of the people in rural Gujarat got no portable water and are outside the purview of the bulk supply pipeline system. Only 17 percent of the rural population has access to treated water supply.

This is in stark contrast to the urban regions about 69 percent of the people have access to treated tap water and 87 percent of the people are covered by tap pipelines. It is even more significant that more than 45 percent of the people of the state have drinking water within their dwellings. Even here the rural urban divide is significant since 83 percent of the urban households and only 48 percent of the rural households have drinking water within their dwellings.

This shows that the public-private partnerships mooted by the Gujarat government have no benefit for the rural regions. Hence any bulk pipeline project implemented by corporate engineering companies has more benefit for the company and less for the people who go thirsty.

MISPLACED PRIORITIES

DISPLACE URBAN POOR

The lack of water has been one of the main justifications for the controversial Sardar Sarovar Dam. The government claims that the water from the Sardar Sarovar dam is being channelled to drought prone villages and for the drinking water needs of the urban poor. However, recent studies show that more than 60 percent of the water released from the Narmada canal is not accounted for. While the government blames the farmers for ‘theft’ it is in fact industry and misplaced corporate projects.

The Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project in Ahmedabad which garners a good portion of the Narmada canal water is one example of such an anti-people corporate friendly initiative. The project is primarily an urban landscaping and transportation project primarily aimed at transforming both sides of the riverbank into leisure space, with claims of providing solutions to flood management, protection of the river from sewer pollution, as well as creating value on land that is wasted as currently used. The project has been hailed by leading corporate evaluators as one of the most ‘innovative urban development projects of the world for urban regeneration’.

But whose regeneration is this project leading to and what sort of vision of urban development does it signify? The answer to this question is provided by several expert groups that have been studying the character of the project. As one study states, there are about 40 thousand people living in and around the Sabarmati riverfront, of these only 3000 to 4000 households have been declared as ‘project affected’ and rehabilitated. But even those rehabilitated have no basic amenities including water. In contrast real estate prices along the riverfront have skyrocketed and become prime property for developers. Hence the diversion of water has been used to sell the urban resources and displace the urban poor. As a student from Harvard University studying the project aptly states, the project has permitted property capitalists to seize riverbed land inhabited and used as commons by the working poor for redevelopment through storylines of ‘beautification’ and ‘social uplift.’ It has been rechristened by him as the ‘Narmada swimming pool and Ahmedabad real estate development project.’

The story of the Sabarmati Riverfront Project and the water crisis of rural Gujarat shows the pro-corporate and anti-poor bias of the Gujarat model of development. Rather than ensuring safe water supply, the government is busy harnessing the water for non-essential profiteering purposes. This is also reflected in the character of the Irrigation and Water Supply Bill of 2013 which seeks to regulate the farmers and penalise ‘errant farmers’ rather than control the water use by the industry. This corporate-state nexus lies at the heart of the BJP’s model of uneven development that should be opposed with high intensity during the current elections.