Palakkad: Under relentless protests by paddy farmers and Anti-Kinfra Pipeline Samara Samiti in Malampuzha, the irrigation department has decided to fix two flow metres to gauge the quantity of water drawn from the Malampuzha Dam for the pipeline and other industrial and domestic use.
A two-page letter of the executive engineer-irrigation the Samiti received on Monday says it agreed to fix the flow meters.
"As of now, Rs 9.6 crore litres (96MLD) of water is taken out of the reservoir as per the official documents in a day. Out of it, 43 MLD is for drinking water purpose and the rest industrial purposes. With the fixing of the metres, the actual quantity for the industrial purpose like soda and drinking water units can be found out," Samara Samiti leader Boban Mattumantha said.
At present, the Kinfra is laying the pipeline to Kanjikode, and the High Court had asked the irrigation to give first preference to farmers while releasing water.
The Samiti has also come out against the building of a mini dam at Kanjikode which will be the first of its kind for collecting water for industrial purposes by storing the excess water released from the dam during monsoon.
The Samiti is of the opinion that environmental impact study needs along with a survey on the availability of water before setting up the mini dam.
