Water level in Mettur crosses 100-ft mark

Salem: The continuous and extraordinarily voluminous inflow of water surplussing from the upper riparian state Karnataka’s reservoirs, aided by heavy rains in Cauvery’s catchment catchment areas, has enabled Mettur reservoir touch the magical level of 100-ft, against its full level of 120-ft, late on Tuesday evening.

Karnataka had been releasing excess waters from Kabini and Krishnaraja Sagar reservoirs from since June 14 this year and the water level, which was at 40-feet level in Mettur then, had started to raise from June 17. Today, it was a another historic milestone crossed for the Stanley reservoir at Mettur, as the water level edged past 100-ft, much to the joy of agrarian Tamil Nadu.

The dam has been receiving inflows of about 1.10 lakh cusecs. After the water level crossed the 100-ft mark, Public Works Department (PWD) officials performed 'pooja' at the dam premises by offering flowers. Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has announced to release water from Mettur dam on July 19 for irrigation. Officials hinted that the Chief Minister is likely to take part in the function.

The continuous increase of water level in the dam brought cheers to farmers in the Cauvery delta region. Speaking about it, R Sugumaran, state deputy president of Joint Action Committee of Tamil Nadu Farmers Association, said, “we expect release of 20,000 cusecs of water from the dam, since it has to reach farmers in tail-end areas of the Cauvery delta. Officials should take immediate steps for desilting canals on a war footing. Rice seeds stock should be increased at godowns by the Agriculture department. Farmers suffered for the past seven years without regular farming and State government should take steps for providing fresh crop loans through cooperative societies along with supplying subsidised fertilizers.”