Giving support to farmers of Saurashtra, Gujarat, prime minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first phase of the Saurashtra Narmada Avatarana Irrigation Yojana (SAUNI) project on Tuesday at Aji III dam in Rajkot. It aims to provide water to the parched zones of the region for irrigation purposes.

It was four years back when Narendra Modi, the then chief minister of Gujarat envisaged a project to use additional flood water of Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh to supplement 115 dams of Gujarat in the interest of farmers.

Gujarat already receives Narmada water via Saurashtra Branch Canal of Sardar Sarovar Dam in Madhya Pradesh. Under the SAUNI project, the reach of the Saurashtra canal, however, will extend by 11 lakh hectares of farm land across 972 villages.

As a part of the project, additional one million acre feet flood water of the Narmada River will be pumped into these 115 dams, which will further provide water to the water scarce rivers.

The project which costs Rs 12,166 crore has been divided into four links – Link 1 from Machhu River Dam of Morbi district to Sani Dam of Dwarka district; Link 2 from Limbadi Bhogavo dam of Surendranagar district to Raydi dam of Amreli district; Link 3 from Dholidhaja dam of Surendranagar district to Venu dam of Rajkot; Link 4 from Limbadi Bhogavo dam of Surendranagar district to Hiran dam of Gir Somnath District.

Under the phase one of the project, 60 kms of the Machhu river dam has been covered. The total length of this link is 180 kms which will affect 105 villages, covering about 47,943 hectare of land of Saurashtra region. The entire project is expected to complete by 2019.