Tewari who was speaking on the occasion of the national workshop on `Assessment and Management of Environmental Impacts in Hydropower and River Valley Projects' in the Capital on Wednesday said that such an integrated approach can solve the recurring problems of drought, floods, landslides, water pollution and maintenance of biodiversity. He stated that big dams alone cannot solve the problems.

There has to be a number of small check dams on the upstream to prevent silting in the concerned big dam. On the downstream there should be drainage facilities to prevent water logging.

There should also be water harvesting structures in the catchment areas in the upstream and in the downstream command areas. Such an integrated approach for surface water management can create better irrigation facilities in the region and prevent the recurrences of floods and droughts.

Tewari regretted that even tough there is about 1953 cubic km of surface water, the distribution is not even over both space and time. Another problem is that of pollution of both surface and ground water which is mainly due to discharge of domestic waste, industrial waste and run off from agriculture. The quality of water depends upon the content of chloroform, pH, DO, BoD, phynol and hydrocarbons.

In a related event, Jay Narayan Vyas, Gujarat minister for Narmada and Major Irrigation Projects in a press conference in the Capital stated that there is an urgent need to speedily complete the Sardar Sarovar Project with a view to prevent the recurrence of drought in the state. He said that had the Sardar Sarovar Project been completed the present drought situation in Gujarat could not have been so severe. The likely immediate beneficiary areas of the project are the present severely drought-hit areas.

Vyas stated that in reality the state has only 21 major dams and not 541 as per ICOLD classification. Most of these 541 dams are not situated over prennial rivers which remain dry most parts of the year. Out of 185 rivers in the state, only eight are prennial and all these eight rivers are located in the southern part of the state. Only Ukai dam constitutes 46 per cent of the aggregate storage of the state. The rest of the dams have very little ie 0.1 per cent average storage capacity.

He said that actual irrigation potential achieved through all major and medium schemes is only 12 lakh hectare where as the Sardar Sarovar Project would alone provide irrigation facilities to 19.24 lakh hectare.

The project would provide reliable safe drinking water to 8,215 villages and 135 urban centres. Around 10,000 check dams are being constructed under Sardar Patel Participatory Water Conservation Scheme in various parts of the state.