Farmers on the western side of Golden Bridge are facing large scale soil erosion by river Narmada.

Farmers on the western side of Golden Bridge are facing large scale soil erosion by river Narmada. It’s not like the erosion only damages farm lands in floods but its continue in high tied situation also.

The change in the course of river has spelt trouble for Ankleshwar’s certain villages like Borbhatha Bet, Sarfuddin, Diva, Nava diva and Dhanturia. As per local farmers huge amount of fertile land is vanished into river water and farmers are now land less.

A crematorium constructed in the year 2012 with the financial help from senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel 30 metres away from Borbhatha bank today stands just adjoining to the river.

The situation in Sarfuddin and Dhanturia villages is the worst. The then Bharuch collector Avantika Singh took stock of the situation before two years and was surprised to see extent of damage. She called officials to prepare a report on the erosion and initiate the procedure for budgetary allocation to construct a protection wall along the riverbank. Avantika Singh was transferred after the survey which again halted the work for protection wall.

A local farmer leader Jamiyat Patel while explaining the situation said, “Many poor farmers are land less today because they lost farming fertile land in soil erosion due to water of river Narmada, we urged many times for protection wall but nothing happened, we are in fear that now one day we will loss our entire village.”

Bharuch based structural engineer Jivraj Patel while talking with Connectgujarat said, “After construction of Sardar Sarovar dam, the hydrology near Bharuch has changed to a great extent. When Sardar Bridge was built on National Highway No. 8 two decades ago, the water flow was artificially diverted and the situation has constantly deteriorated since then." He also added that the situation is reversed today earlier sweet water of river was damaging the land but now it damaged by sea water.”