Question

Why is Sardar Sarovar Project considered important for Gujarat?

Answer 1

Concept:

• The importance of a water project is measured by how much land it serves and how badly that land needs water.
• The passage supplies a figure for each.

Step 1: Measure how much land is served.
18.45 lakh hectare across 3112 villages in 15 districts is a very large share of the cultivable area of the state. A project of that reach touches a substantial part of the rural population.

Step 2: Measure how badly the land needs water.
About 75 per cent of that command area is drought prone. For three out of every four hectares, a failed monsoon has always meant a failed crop.

Step 3: Put the two together.
A large area plus a high level of need equals a high impact. Assured supply turns land that was at the mercy of the rains into land that can be cropped with confidence.

Final Answer: Its importance lies in the combination of reach and need. It waters 18.45 lakh hectare over 3112 villages in 15 districts, and because three quarters of that area is drought prone, assured supply will make the region drought proof.

Answer 2

Concept:

• A river does not stop at a state boundary, so a project built on one must be planned for the whole basin.
• Sharing the project also means sharing the cost, the water and the land that goes under the reservoir.

Step 1: Start with the river itself.
The Narmada rises in Madhya Pradesh and flows west through Maharashtra and Gujarat towards the sea. A dam on it affects the land and people of every state along its course, so none of them can be left out of the planning.

Step 2: Look at where the water is needed.
The source says the project would meet the requirement of water in drought prone and desert areas. Those areas are spread across the region and do not sit inside one state.
Rajasthan, though not on the river, has the desert districts of Barmer and Jalore that the project reaches.

Step 3: Look at how the benefit is divided.
Gujarat receives irrigation for 18.45 lakh hectare, Rajasthan for 2,46,000 hectare, and the tribal hilly tract of Maharashtra for 37,500 hectare through lift. Each state has a defined share.

Step 4: Note why a shared design is sensible.
One large dam serving four states is cheaper and uses less land than four separate schemes, and it lets water be moved from where it is plentiful to where it is scarce.

Final Answer: Because the Narmada basin and the dry areas needing its water both stretch across Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan, a single project serving all four is the only workable design, and each state receives a fixed share of the irrigation.

Answer 3

Concept:

• A project is sustainable if it still helps people many years from now, so the test is whether it removes a recurring problem rather than a one-time one.
• Drought is exactly such a recurring problem.

Step 1: Identify the recurring problem being removed.
About 75 per cent of the command area in Gujarat is drought prone and the entire command in Rajasthan is drought prone. Drought returns again and again, and each time it destroys a crop and a year of income.

Step 2: Show how storage breaks that cycle.
Rain that would have run off to the sea within weeks is held back and released when the fields need it. The source calls the result an assured water supply that will make the area drought proof.
The problem is removed permanently rather than relieved once.

Step 3: Show that the benefit reaches those with the fewest alternatives.
Water is lifted to the tribal hilly tract of Maharashtra and carried to the desert districts of Barmer and Jalore. These are places where people had no second source of income to fall back on.

Step 4: Show the efficiency of the design.
One project serves four states and several purposes at once, so the land submerged and the money spent produce far more benefit than several smaller separate schemes would.

Final Answer: It is sustainable because it ends a problem that used to return every few years. Stored water gives assured supply, drought prone and desert districts are made cultivable, vulnerable communities gain a steady livelihood, and one structure serves four states together.