The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Mettur water release on July 25

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 12, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Mettur water release on July 25

S. Vydhianathan

A section of farmers feels it should be advanced by a week

Storage may cross 60 tmcft by July 25: officials
Farmers have to go for samba cultivation

CHENNAI: The State Government on Wednesday decided to open the Mettur reservoir on July 25 to release water for irrigation in the delta areas.

According to an official press release, the decision was taken as the current storage was 54 thousand million cubic (tmc) feet with an inflow of 30,000 cusecs. The Government hoped that the storage would increase in coming weeks in view of the heavy inflow.

Public Works Department officials here said the storage might cross 60 tmcft by July 25. Of the 30,000 cusecs of inflow at the reservoir, about 25,000 cusecs is from the Kabini dam, which is overflowing, and the rest from the Krishnaraja Sagar.

With an inflow of 51,600 cusecs, KRS might surplus any time. Its current storage was 6 tmcft short of its capacity of 49.5 tmcft.

The officials said farmers would have to settle for the samba crop. The coverage this time would be more than the normal 4.05 lakh hectares in the absence of kuruvai cultivation.

Farmers elated

Delta farmers were jubilant on hearing the news. If the reservoir is opened on July 25, it will take at least a week for the water to reach the delta districts.

A majority of the delta farmers have started nursery preparations for the samba crop with the available water to ensure that no time is lost when the water reaches their fields.

They want to complete the transplantation of nurseries before September 30 so that the crops can withstand heavy rain during the northeast monsoon.

However, a section of the farmers feel the opening of the reservoir should be advanced by at least by a week so that they can cultivate long-term crop. They say with the current inflow, storage at the reservoir will cross 60 tmcft before the weekend itself.

If the reservoir is opened on July 25, farmers can go for a medium term varieties only. If long duration varieties such as CR 1009 are to be cultivated, transplantation should be over by the fourth week of August, they say. Only then can the crop withstand the monsoon.

“Convene meeting”

Arupathi Kalyanam, general secretary of the Federation of Farmers’ Associations, wanted the Government to convene a meeting of officials of PWD, Agriculture Department, and cooperative and nationalised banks at the earliest to discuss issues such as irrigation management, availability of agricultural inputs and farm credit.

He regretted that at present there was no proper irrigation management and water seldom reached the tail-end areas.

Farmers were not getting crop loans in time and nationalised and scheduled banks were offering only jewel loans. These issues should be addressed immediately for successful samba cultivation in the districts.

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