Farming activity gains pace in Cauvery delta for Kuruvai season

Amid the usual complaint that Cauvery water is not reaching the tail-end areas, farming operations during the Kuruvai cultivation season are picking up momentum. Against the target of 5.7 lakh acres in the Cauvery delta, around 3.09 lakh acres have been covered as of now, according to information available with the State Agriculture Department.

A few days ago, AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami issued a statement, holding the DMK regime responsible for not ensuring the flow of Cauvery water to the tail of the river system in the State even though 20 days had passed since the opening of the Mettur dam.

Tiruvarur, Muthupet, Kottur, and Thiruthuraipoondi panchyat unions of Tiruvarur district; Thalainayar and Vedaranyam of Nagapattinam district; and Peravurani, Pattukottai, and Madukkur of Thanjavur district were the areas where farmers had not been able to take up transplantation for want of Cauvery water. So far, the State government has not reacted to his statement. The complaint notwithstanding, the coverage this time is around 60,000 acres higher than what it was last year. Even in the regions outside the Cauvery delta, the current year’s performance has been better.

The main reason for the present year’s impressive performance is the fairly comfortable storage of irrigation reservoirs. To illustrate further, as on July 4 (Friday), the storage of 90 reservoirs, the data for which is available with the Water Resources Department, amounted to about 183 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft), around 81% of the aggregate capacity of all the reservoirs. As regards to the Mettur dam, the lifeline of the Cauvery delta, almost all the inflow is being let out into the river, as the dam is close to the brim.

Last year, on the same day, the dam had a storage of about 12 tmcft, whereas, as on Saturday morning, it had 93 tmcft, barely half a tmcft short of its full capacity of 93.47 tmcft. Around 32,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) was being released into the river.

In June, Tamil Nadu realised 42.25 tmc ft of the Cauvery water as against the quota of 9.19 tmc ft, as measured at the inter-State point in Biligundlu. This was the highest quantity received by the lower-riparian State after the Supreme Court gave its judgment in February 2018.

Meanwhile, sections of the delta farmers suggest that the government, instead of providing the Kuruvai package for one acre per farmer, increase the extent of acres, while focussing on the needy farmers.