SOS sounded as Mettur water level declines

TIRUCHY: As the storage in the Mettur reservoir has been declining gradually and the inflow has become less comparatively, the farmers from the region have been pressing the State government to act swiftly on getting the due share of water from Karnataka.

As of Saturday, the Mettur level stood at 92 feet with a storage of 55.956 TMC and so the outflow which stood at 20,000 to 23,000 cusecs a couple of weeks back, had declined to 15,000 cusecs for the past week and this quantity of water is inadequate for completing the samba cultivation in the region.

This has prompted the farmers to stage a series of protests demanding the state government to get them the due share of water to go ahead with the samba cultivation which they commenced with the water source available in the bore wells.

According to senior agriculture technocrat P Kalaivanan, at least 40 TMC water is required during October for Delta irrigation. During November and December, at least 20 TMC water is required and in January a minimum of 30 TMC water is required to achieve the samba target.

“While there is a need for 110 TMC water, the current storage is just 55.956 TMC which is too low to support samba cultivation,” Kalaivanan said.

He also said that there was no adequate rainfall during August and September, so the farmers who depend on river irrigation failed to get water for their cultivation, as an adequate quantity of water is required for raising nurseries and transplanting them. He appealed to the State government to get the due water share from Karnataka.