Puducherry: Dredging work of the water bodies has been started in the Union Territory to increase the storage capacity for meeting the growing drinking water and irrigation needs. The Puducherry Department of Science, Technology and Environment had secured a grant of Rs 17 crore from NABARD for renewing 52 water bodies including 20 tanks and 32 village ponds. Under this centrally sponsored scheme, the PWD has started cleaning the Kirumampakkam tank as the first step.
Puducherry, which has 84 irrigation tanks, largely depends upon surface water bodies for drinking and agriculture purpose. The interlinked tanks in the Union Territory were designed where water from the nearby rivers would proceed to fill tanks one by one in a cascading manner. The tanks were made in such a way that if a tank in the system got filled up to the appropriate level, the excess water would flow out into the next one in the system along the earthen channels.
But recently the Union Territory has shifted in large-scale to groundwater for irrigation. The new project intended to educate local communities on climate change impacts and how to diminish reliance on groundwater resources and restoring surface water bodies. Chief Minister V Narayanasamy recently said that the government is planning to desilt and rejuvenate as many as 64 water bodies in the Union Territory so as to ensure the strengthening of the underground water table to help farmers get assured irrigation purpose. He also said that government had earmarked 6 crores for the desilting of the ponds and lakes as farmers were now facing difficulty because of the water table going down following the absence of rains.
