Narmada Canal

The Narmada Canal is a contour canal in Western India that brings water from the Sardar Sarovar Dam to the state of Gujarat and then into Rajasthan state. The main canal has a length of 532 km (458 km in Gujarat and then 74 km in Rajasthan). It is the second longest canal in India (after the Indira Gandhi Canal) and the largest canal by water carrying capacity (40,000 cusec at source). The main canal is connected with 42 branch canals providing irrigation to 21,29,000 ha farmland (about 18 lakh hectares in Gujarat and 2.5 lakh hectares in Rajasthan). The canal is designed to transfer 9.5 e6acre-ft water annually from the Narmada Basin to areas under other river basins in Gujarat and Rajasthan. (9 MAF for Gujarat and 0.5 MAF for Rajasthan).

Soon after the completion of the construction project, the Narmada canal was inaugurated on 24 April 2008. It has carrying capacity of 40,000 cubic foot per second (cfs or cusec) at its head in Navagam and is decreased to 2,600 cusecs at Sanchore. On the way, Narmada main canal crosses many rivers and water bodies. The main canal itself can hold 220 MCM (Million cubic metre) of water at full supply depth. It is designed not only for the water supply but also the storage of water to improve the response time of the system.

Irrigation in Gujarat
The main canal has 38 branches in Gujarat.

Saurashtra Branch Canal
Saurashtra Branch is the largest of these branches which has a length of 104.46 km and discharge of 15002 cuft/s. The Saurashtra branch canal has 3 mini hydroelectricity plants to utilize the energy from water at the fall of 52 m in first 59 km. Subsequently, in the 59 to 104.46 km span it has five pumping stations to pump the water 66 m up before tailing into Bhogavo - II reservoir.

Irrigation in Rajasthan
Although the Narmada River does not flow through Rajasthan and no area of Rajasthan falls in the Narmada basin, considerations were made to irrigate its lands with the water from the Narmada River that flows through the neighboring state of Gujarat, to encourage peasants to settle in the areas along the international border with Pakistan. After traversing 458 km in Gujarat, the Narmada canal enters Rajasthan near Shilu in the Sanchor tehsil of Jalore. The 74 km main canal, with 9 major distributaries, serves an area of 1477 km2, including 124 villages. In total, it was designed to irrigate 246000 ha in 233 villages in Jalore and Barmer and provide drinking water to 1,336 villages.

The Narmada canal has a few unique features compared to other projects:
 * 1) Irrigation water is delivered to farmer groups, via Water Users Associations (WUA), not to individual farmers. WUAs are responsible for the operation and maintenance of field water canals.
 * 2) Micro-irrigation systems such as drip and sprinklers to be encouraged for efficient water usage.

Solar panels
Solar canals are being installed along a 1 km pilot project section of the Sanand Branch Canal near Chandrasan village to generate 1 MW of electricity. The solar panels are forecast to also reduce evaporation of water from the canal by 9000000 litres per year.