Mettur dam set to receive more water

Chennai: With Karnataka receiving copious inflow into its reservoirs, the release of Cauvery water into Tamil Nadu is now maintained at around 2,500 cusecs and with Karnataka’s Kabini reservoir filling fast, the Mettur dam that caters to western Tamil Nadu is likely to benefit with surplus water by next month, public works department sources said.

The Herangi dam with a capacity of 8 tmc feet is full and the surplus is released into the Kabini. Kabini is also receiving inflows and about 11,000 cusecs of water was released by dams in Karnataka. If this continues, it will increase water storage levels there. We hope for more rains by the end of this month, PWD sources said.

Till Sunday Mettur received an inflow of 2,200 cusecs and on Monday the reservoir started receiving around 2,500 cusecs, increasing the storage level close to 27 feet. This means the dam now has 6.5 tmc feet water. For drinking water purpose 500 cusecs water was released and from the first week of August, there are possibilities to increase outflow, PWD sources said.

Meanwhile, dry weather prevailed in the TN catchment areas and rainfall in the past 48 hours ending  Tuesday was negligible with Valparai and Nilgiris alone receiving mild showers. “The second spell of the south west monsoon is a failure and now it seems that the third spell of monsoon is also a failure in forest areas located close to Kerala and Karnataka,” said a forest ranger in Nilgiris. The inflow into the perennial Moyar river is also not encouraging and nearby Sathyamangalam is also facing a deficit rainfall since last month.

The only respite is that with the intermittent rains, wild animals, particularly elephants, have reduced straying in Coimbatore and Krishnagiri districts, the forester added.