SALEM: Bowing to delta farmers’ demands, with many areas downstream not having received Cauvery water so far, the govt on Sunday stepped up the discharge from the Mettur reservoir to 18,000 cusecs from 10,000 cusecs.
While water for delta irrigation for the ‘Samba (long-term)’ paddy crop this year was released by the CM on Aug 13, several farmers organisations complained that the quantity of discharge at 10,000 cusecs was not sufficient to enable the water reach all the canal irrigated areas, particularly tail-end areas.
Hence, the PWD authorities today decided to increase the outflow to 18,000 cusecs with the water level in the reservoir being 117-ft today against its full level of 120-ft. The storage in the reservoir on Sunday morning was 89.43 tmcft against its full capacity to hold 93.47 tmcft of water, official sources said. The inflows into the dam have come down to 12,000 cusecs.
Despite the farmers’ clamour to step up the discharge to 20,000 cusecs, the government was in a fix as ‘Kudimaramathu’ works were going on at various places in the delta area. Now that a majority of those de-silting works are nearing completion and the water storage level in the dam being comfortable, authorities decided to enhance the discharge from 6 pm on Sunday evening.
