Mettur dam fills up for 2nd time, delta in joy

As it was raining heavily in the catchment areas of the Cauvery in Karnataka and Kerala from Tuesday onwards, with rainfall reaching up to 100 mm, the excess water is flowing downstream to Tamil Nadu. This would help the farmers in the Delta region as they have just started the samba works, said P Kalaivanan, an office-bearer of the Senior Agro Technologists Forum of Tamil Nadu.

“While the meteorological department had given a forecast of heavy rains in the catchments areas in Karnataka, the rains would continue at least till August 15 which would be also an added advantage to the farmers,” Kalaivanan said.

Meanwhile, renowned farmer Mannargudi S Ranganathan, the general secretary of Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association said, the South West monsoon is very active where it supposed to be and the beneficiary of this would certainly be the Delta farmers as they have started to take up samba cultivation, he said.

He added, despite over one lakh cusecs of water is being released from Karnataka,  the government should ensure that the inlet channels into the water bodies like lakes have not been cleared and hence water is not being stored in most of the water bodies. “However, the large lakes like the Vaduvur lake, Tirumakkottai lake should be filled with the water being released from Mettur reservoir,” he suggested.

Meanwhile, an official of Agriculture Department said that they have advised the farmers to commence the raising of samba nursery from August 10 onwards. “Hence the farmers would raise samba nursery in large areas in the next week,” he added. So far samba nursery has been raised in 30 hectares across Thanjavur district alone. With this, an ambitious target of 1.05 lakh hectares of samba and 30,000 hectares of Thalady in Thanjavur district and 1.20 lakh hectares of samba and 28,000 hectares of Thalady in Tiruvarur and 1.10 lakh hectares in Nagapattinam has been planned for this year.

Farmers from the Vadavaru canal irrigation region have planned a mega protest on August 13 demanding release of water to the Vadavaru in Mannargudi as they have not yet received any flow even days after opening of the Mettur Dam. They said that this canal supports irrigation to over 25,000 acres in the region.

Speaking to reporters after convening a consultative meeting with the Vadavaru Irrigation Farmers Association, PR Pandian, coordinator of All Farmers Associations said, despite the Mettur reaching its full capacity twice this season, the lakes and ponds in the Cavuery Delta region are still dry. “This is due to failure of desilting the inlet canals across the region that resulted in the water flowing waste into the sea. Since there is no water in these regions, the farmers are in a dilemma whether to cultivate samba,” Pandian said.

Stating that the Vadavaru canal has been irrigating over 25,000 acres in Mannargudi and Tiruvarur, Pandian said, even the ground water level is in a sorry state of affair in the Vadavaru region. The All Farmers Association has planned to stage a mega protest on August 13 to ensure water to the tail end region as well as desilting of the water bodies at the earliest.