The Gujarat government has cleared the release of 600 cusecs of water from the Machhu-2 reservoir in Morbi to Jamnagar and Devbhumi Dwarka, drawing it through Link-1 of the Saurashtra Narmada Avataran Irrigation scheme. IANS reported the decision on 29 August, and the state has attached a clear order of priority to it: drinking water first, irrigation only from whatever is left.
That ordering is the most informative part of the announcement.
Two monsoons in one state
Gujarat as a whole has had a reasonable season. South Gujarat has had a soaking, with Valsad, Navsari and Surat all far above their seasonal norms, and reservoirs across most of the state sitting comfortably full. The Halar coast has had a different year altogether.
Devbhumi Dwarka is the outlier. By late July the district had recorded around 36 mm against a seasonal normal above 180 mm, a shortfall of roughly 80 per cent, according to Vibes of India, and the gap has widened since. Jamnagar is running about 22 per cent short, Porbandar about 31 per cent, and Kutch about 27 per cent. A state average of “normal” hides a coastal strip that has effectively skipped the monsoon.
What Link-1 was built for
SAUNI moves surplus Narmada water into Saurashtra’s existing dams rather than building new ones. Link-1 runs from the Machhu-II dam in Morbi to Sani Dam in Jamnagar and is designed to fill about 30 reservoirs across Jamnagar, Devbhumi Dwarka, Rajkot and Morbi, serving roughly 2.02 lakh acres. Its carrying capacity is 1,200 cusecs, so the current draw uses half the pipe.
The scheme is doing exactly the job it was designed for. The catch is the source. IANS noted that Narmada basin storage is itself below normal this year, which limits how much and how long Saurashtra can lean on the link. SAUNI redistributes water; it does not create it.
Why the drinking-water clause matters to farmers
Putting drinking water ahead of irrigation is standard practice and legally sound. For a groundnut or cotton grower in Kalyanpur or Khambhalia, it also signals that canal water is unlikely to arrive in time to rescue this kharif crop. Sowing happened in June and July on the expectation of rain that did not come.
Gujarat AAP president Isudan Gadhvi began an indefinite sit-in on 30 August, calling it a Drought Declaration Satyagraha, after a deadline the party had set for the government lapsed. Prokerala, citing IANS, reported his claim that only about a quarter of the seed sown in the affected districts germinated. That figure is a political estimate and has not been confirmed by the state agriculture department, but the demands attached to it are specific: a formal drought declaration, fodder support for gaushalas, SAUNI releases for irrigation, and a farm electricity bill waiver in affected talukas.
A drought declaration is not primarily about water. It is the administrative trigger that unlocks crop compensation norms, fodder depots, employment guarantee works and revenue relief. Releasing water and declaring drought are separate levers, and the state has so far pulled only the first.
What to watch
Three markers over the next few weeks. Whether the September rain that IMD expects reaches the Halar coast rather than the already-wet south. Whether the state orders taluka-level crop-cutting experiments, the formal input for any drought call. And whether Machhu-2 can keep feeding Link-1 through the rabi season, which is when Jamnagar’s wheat and cumin sowing will need it.
Sources: IANS, Prokerala, Vibes of India
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.