Bike rally to highlight Gujarat’s salinity ingress

After a successful public campaign against Nirma's cement plant at Mahuva, Dr Kanubhai Kalsaria, BJP MLA from Mahuva, will stage a bicycle rally to address the issue of salinity ingress on the Gujarat coastline. Starting September 11, he will lead the 600-km rally from Mahuva to Jamnagar. Farmers and fishermen from Kutch will join the rally in Jamnagar.

Dr Kalsaria said, "The objective of this bicycle rally is different from the farmers' foot march to Gandhinagar, which was held in March, 2011. To address the issue of salinity ingress on the coastline, union and state governments had started many projects and schemes to construct check dam-cum-tidal regulatory structures (CDTRS), popularly known as bandharas. High level committees set up in 1978 and 1984 have suggested these schemes, but several ambitious projects on the coastline have been shelved."

He added, "In Mahuva region all the work has been completed and that's why the salinity in the land has nullified and now farmers are happily growing three crops a year. If such schemes are completed across the coast of Gujarat, farmers will not ask for anything else. We want to make farmers on the coast aware about these facts by showing them the Mahuva example."

Former state finance minister Sanat Mehta said, "This will not be merely a bicycle rally but we are aiming to make all the farmers and other classes of people aware that these issues are affecting everybody.  After this we are planning to organize a 'Boat Rally' of fishermen from Mundra to Umargam. We want people to know their rights and demand them from the government."

Veteran social activist and Gandhian Chunibhai Vaidya said, "Government is intentionally not completing constructive and farmer friendly projects in the state. In the Mahuva movement we said 'Bandharo bachao'; in this rally we will say 'Bandhara banavo'."