A key research paper — Water Resources in Gujarat - Past, Present & Future, prepared by B N Navalawala, Adviser to Chief Minister Narendra Modi on water resources and former Central water resources development secretary — indicates that the per capita water availability in the state is considerably low and is likely to go down further by 2015. Therefore, it says, the state needs to focus on the effective planning and management of its water resources.

The paper warns that with the urban water needs being higher than that in rural areas, and Gujarat being an urbanised state, the demand and supply ratio may get skewed in the future.

According to the government’s own estimate, the state’s per capita water availability in 2001 was 990 m3/annum against the country’s 1901 m3/annum. This is already considered as chronic water scarcity, which is estimated to go down to 738 m3/ annum by 2015 and 601 m3/annum by 2025.

At present, the per capita availability of water in north Gujarat, Saurashtra, Kutch and south and central Gujarat is 343, 540, 730 and 1880 m3/annum respectively (as per 2001 estimate).

Navalawala’s paper notes that Gujarat covers 5.96% of the total area in the country and 4.93% of the total population (Census 2001), and has only 2.28% of the total surface water resources available in the country despite the fact that 185 rivers, including eight perennial ones, run through the state.

“According to the latest estimates by the state irrigation department, the annual availability of utilisable water resources in the state is about 50.10 billion cubic metre, out of which 38.10 billion cubic metre is surface water. The rest, i.e. 12 billion cubic metre, is available as ground water. As the average per capita availability of water in the state stands at around 900 cubic metre, Gujarat falls in the category of states facing water scarcity as per the norms laid by the UN,” he noted.

As per criteria used for planning of any water supply project, the average water consumption per person in urban areas is 140 litres against the average of 50 litres in rural areas. This implies that rapid urbanisation may be considered a barometer of healthy economic growth, but it can disturb the balance between the demand and supply of water in a big way. Moreover, the growth in urban population is not equally distributed, and remains limited to certain pockets, Navalawala observed.

The demand of water for domestic use in the state works out to be 4.52 billion litres per day. But if growth takes place at a compounded rate of 2.2% and the proportion of urban population rises to 50%, the demand would be around 5.79 billion litres. “Considering our agriculture growth and future needs, the State Water Policy as well as the State Agriculture Policy, including the pattern for crop selection, need to be reviewed,” he said.