Groundwater Contamination

LUSH FIELDS AND PARCHED THROATS:
The Political E C O ~ O ~Groundwater in Gu-iarat of N

Bela Bhatia
Setu: Centre f i r Social Knowledge and Action (Ahmedabad)

July I992

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study is motivated and informed by my fist-hand experience of social action in the rural areas of Sabarkantha dismct (North Gujarat) during the period 1985-9C, which included (I severe drought. I would like to thank my co-workers in Shramjivi Samaj, especially Karsanbhi, Rarnilaben, Nainaben, Heerabhai, Chandrakanth and Mohanbhai both for their companionship during rhis period and for heir contribution t o this research. I am dso grateful to Khetabhai S o l d , who helped to collect the village data used in the "case study" included in this paper. Access to secondary data sources was greatly facilitated by the generous cooperation of the Centre for Social Knowledge and Action (Setu, Ahmedabad), the Centre for Social Studies (Sum), the Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad), the Institute of Rural Management (Anand), the Indian Law Institute (New Delhi), the institute of Economic Growth (Delhi), and the Delhi School of Economics. Comments and suggestions from L.K. Atheeq, Amiya Bagchi, V. Bhdlabh, Robin Burgess, Rema Devi, B.D.Dhawan, S. Kolavalli, Richard Palmer-Jones, Ashok Pmjwani, Girish Patel, Jem-Philippe Platteau, Somshekhar Reddy, Emma Rathschild, Esha Shah, Ghanshym Shah, Chhatrapati Singh, Madhura Swaminathm and Achyut Yagnik have been extremely useful. Special thanks are due to Mike Scorer for producing the maps with great skill. I rtm grateful to WIDER for agreeing to circulate this study in its Working Paper series. My colleagues and friends in Setu have helped in many different ways. I would particularly like to thank Varsha Bhagnt, Rohit Jain, Ashok Shrimali and Achyut Yagnik for their unfailing moral support as well as for their helpful comments and suggestions. There are few words in which I can express my sincere gratitude to Jean Drhze for his

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