Promise made by Jayalalithaa fulfilled, says Edappadi Palaniswami

Tirupur: Laying the foundation stone for the Rs 1,652 crore ‘Athikadavu-Avinashi’ water augmentation scheme at a function near here on Thursday, the Chief Minister, Edappadi K. Palaniswami said it was not only a long-pending demand of the farmers of this arid region that was being met, but also it was also a commitment given to the people by former Chief Minister, J. Jayalalithaa in the 2016 Assembly poll manifesto of the AIADMK.

Stating that the crux of this novel scheme was to utilize the surplus waters of the Bhavani river, divert them to augment and recharge the water bodies in the arid Avinashi block of Tirupur district and some additional areas now included in the modified project, Palaniswami said the project had been fraught with several hurdles. An earlier proposal sent during the previous Jayalalithaa regime in 2013 was then negative by the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre, he said.

Assuring to implement the project at the earliest, Palaniswami said Avinashi and its surrounding areas was not only severely drought-prone, but also groundwater levels had hit new lows that the challenge was to sustain agriculture in this belt and also ensure drinking water to the people in the nearby villages.

Accordingly, under this project, Palaniswami said surplus water will be drawn from the Bhavani river, 230 metres downstream of Kalingarayan dam, the water pumped up and taken to feed lakes, tanks and other water bodies in Avinashi taluk in Tirupur district, besides some adjoining areas in Erode and Coimbatore district. It will help recharge groundwater sources and thereby help meet the needs of both irrigation for agriculture and for drinking water purposes, he said.

In these three districts covering nine taluks, the surplus water under the scheme will be taken to fill 32 PWD tanks, 42 panchayat union tanks, and 971 percolation ponds, he said. To offset the electricity needed to pump up the water, he said the government had included installation of a 30 mw solar power plant on government ‘poromoboke land’ at a cost of Rs 132.80 crore. This would ensure that farmers in future will not have to pay for the energy used in pumping the water at the off-take point under the Athikadavu-Avinashi scheme, he added. Certain additional areas in the periphery of Coimbatore including Karamadai, Periyanaykanpalayam and Thondamuthur and 450 smaller water bodies in Sarkar Samakulam union have also been included to benefit from this scheme in its second phase, he said. “Amma’s government is committed to this,” he stressed.

Thanking the Speaker of the Assembly, Mr. P. Dhanapal, the MLAs’ and Ministers from all the three districts whose cooperative efforts led by Jayalalithaa initially and later by himself has enabled this project, Palaniswami said Tamil Nadu government would also take up with the Centre interlinking the Godavari river with Cauvery. The Chief Minister also took the occasion to explain in detail the other water supply and irrigation projects taken up in the last two years and his government’s proposal to develop a Rs 2,000 crore ‘Food Park’ near Chennai.