The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Water being released for Adi Perukku

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Saturday, Jul 24, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Water being released for Adi Perukku

By S. Vydhianathan

CHENNAI, JULY 23. The Government has decided to release 1,000 million cubic feet (1 tmcft) of water a day from today for a week from the Mettur Reservoir for the Adi Perukku festival.

An official release here said today that following representations from the public, the Chief Minister ordered the water release for the festival.

Meanwhile, today's storage at the reservoir was 37.153 tmcft against its capacity of 93.4 tmcft. The inflow was 3,819 cusecs.

Farmers' demand

Though there is a demand from a section of delta farmers and the Opposition parties for water release for kuruvai, the Government is not ready to do so. The current storage, according to officials, is not sufficient to meet the needs of kuruvai. As the crop requires a minimum of 90 tmcft it will not be prudent to open the reservoir when the storage is just 37.153 tmcft.

The officials said that for kuruvai, at least 1.25 tmcft had to be released every day, at least for a month. Then only those in the tail-end areas could take up cultivation.

Fall in storage

The recent good inflow for the last one month, they said, no doubt had improved the storage. But, the inflow was mainly owing to surplussing of the Kabini Reservoir and not because of either Centre's or Karnataka's initiative. This became apparent when the storage came down with Karnataka building up the storage again by curtailing the release. Now it was discharging only 1,000 cusecs against the inflow of about 3,000 cusecs though its storage had almost reached its capacity.

The officials said Karnataka had not released water from its other reservoirs where the storage was fairly good. In the Krishnaraja Sagar (KRS), the storage was 25 tmcft against its capacity of 49 tmcft, in the Herangi Dam it was 7.5 tmcft (9) and in the Hemavathi Dam it was 18.5 tmcft (37.1).

While the release from the Herangi and Hemavathi dams would only lead to increase in the storage of the Krishnaraja Sagar, the discharge from the KRS alone would help improve the level in the Mettur Reservoir. Not a single drop had been released from the KRS this year so far, the officials said.

Interim award

As per an interim award of the Cauvery Water Tribunal, Karnataka has to release 10.16 tmcft in June and 42.76 in July. The realisation at the Mettur Reservoir was about 13 tmcft in June and 18 tmcft so far in this month.

In all probability, the Government may allow the storage to improve further before taking any decision on opening the reservoir, according to water managers here.

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