Raising the issue of building the gates on Sardar Sarovar dam on River Narmada, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi targeted the Centre by saying that farmers are not getting adequate water for farming due to delay in permission from the Union Government.
“I appeal to the Prime Minister and leaders of ruling party to allow building gates on Sardar dam rather than just playing politics. If this dam completes, then the credit will be given to all the Governments,” Modi said at the inauguration ceremony of four-day-long Agro Vision India-2014 function at Kagwad village near Rajkot.
The event is organised by Khodaldham Trust where over 800 national and international stalls have been erected to showcase the latest research and technology in the field of farming to the farmers.
“Gujarat Government has encouraged this Krishi Mela. A new experiment for the development of agriculture with the help of ‘Krishi Mahotsav’ and various campaigns for water conservation have been initiated by Gujarat to advance in the fields of agriculture,” said the Gujarat Chief Minister.
While outlining how the farmers were promised to have electricity 20 years ago he said that the farmers need water not electricity from the last one decade. It was his Government, which has spread out such awareness and also successfully launched various water conservation experiments that led to the development of farming in a right direction, he added.
Stressing upon to initiate ‘save water’ campaign Modi said, “Though we have availed water facilities but alongside we also need to encourage drip irrigation system so that each drop of water can rightly serve the production.” He further informed that the farmers have learned to enhance agricultural production even in the smaller scale of land considering its limits. “And with the help of Per Drop More Crop, agricultural production will boost up,” he added.
Emphasising on value added farming, he announced to aware the farmers regarding value-added agri production in the conventional farming and also several advanced farming tactics for more agri-production. He claimed if the farming gets rich, the villages will become prosperous and so as the economy of the country leading to augmenting the purchasing power of the people. Alongside these, Modi also outlined about ‘Statue of Unity’ of iron man Sardar Patel as an inspirational source of farmers’ strength which will become a grand monument of unity in the nation.
Paying tribute to the ‘Iron Man’, Modi said that Sardar had inspired freedom movement of people residing in erstwhile Junagadh State. “We might have to take visa to watch lions in Gir forest — an only abode of Asiatic lions in the world, if Junagadh State was merged to Pakistan as per the wish of Nawab of Junagadh,” he added.