The Gujarat government will start utilising seepage and dead water of the Sardar Sarovar Dam (SSD) on the Narmada river by the end of this month, a top bureaucrat said today. Gujarat Chief Secretary J N Singh today visited the dam site at Kevadia, around 100 kms away from Vadodara, from where the dead and seepage water will be utilised. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani recently said the Narmada Control Authority (NCA) had allowed the use of seepage and dead water of the dam to tackle brewing water crisis. "At present, the water level at the dam stands at 111.37 metres (live storage). The NCA has already sanctioned the use of seepage and dead water after it falls below 110.64 metres.
There will be no problem on the drinking water front in the state and it will be provided to the people," he said. The NCA held a meeting with state government officials on February 9. The storage in the SSD fell by 45 per cent, the lowest in the last 15 years, mainly due to poor rainfall in Madhya Pradesh last monsoon. Besides Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan are the two other beneficiary states of the project. "Usually, the state receives about nine million acre feet (MAF) of water. Of this, 0.20 MAF is given for industrial use. However, this year, the state has received only 4.71 MAF water," Singh said.
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