Officials pull up Thangal farmers for quarrying in guise of desilt work

Thangal village panchayat president TC Padmanaban told DT Next, “All farmers in the village planned to hire an earthmover to clear the bushes for around 200 metres in the channel from the river so that our standing crops – paddy, cane and groundnut, in around 600 acres will receive water without any trouble.” 

As their repeated requests to desilt the 4-km-long Kasam channel fell on deaf ears of the officials, farmers decided to carry out the work themselves. “Though we had earlier undertaken similar work, this time the officials refused to accept and understand our need and twisted the exercise to be one of quarrying sand from the river,” he added. 

The work gained importance following Kalavakunda dam in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district brimming after the recent rains. The water from the dam was released into Ponnai river resulting in neighbouring Kumananthangal irrigation tank filling up, while Thangal farmers were left fuming as water could not reach their standing crops since the channel leading to the village was silted up for over a decade. 

On Sunday, when farmers took efforts to desilt the channel to get water from Ponnai river, revenue and police officials rushed to the spot and held talks with the farmers promising to do the work officially through the PWD or water resources department. Based on the assurance, farmers stopped the work and were now awaiting official action. 

Padmanabhan said farmers would hand over official petitions to both Collector AR Gladstone Pushparaj and Handlooms Minister R Gandhi for expeditious completion of the work, so that the river water was not wasted.