Members of the ruling BJP and opposition Congress got into heated arguments over the implementation of the Saurashtra-Narmada Avataran Irrigation (SAUNI) Yojana in Gujarat Assembly, on Wednesday. Congress MLAs alleged large-scale corruption in the implementation of the scheme whereas Chief Minister and Leader of the House Vijay Rupani said that had SAUNI not been there, entire Saurashtra would have had to be vacated this year due to water scarcity.
The issue cropped up during Question Hour when a question related to the SAUNI Yojana raised by Congress MLA from Gandh-inagar (North) constituency C J Chavda was taken up for discussion. Chavda had asked how much was the total expenditure planned to fill up all the reservoirs of Saurashtra under the scheme.
In a written reply, Chief Mini-ster Vijay Rupani answered that till May 2019, a total Rs 18,563.24 crore was planned to be used for filling up all the reservoirs in Saurashtra. Against that, he added, Rs 12,978.64 crore was spent to lay pipelines for 867.91 km.