TIRUCHY: The agrarian crisis across the Cauvery Delta deepened on Monday as thousands of acres of samba paddy fields in Thanjavur and Tiruvarur districts remained submerged under stagnant rainwater, thanks to failure of outlet canals due to lack of maintenance.

Despite a huge shortage in river water for irrigation, farmers who relied on borewell facilities had commenced sowing samba crops after an initial delay of several weeks. Just as the young shoots began to grow, relentless North East monsoon downpours lashed the Delta region for over a week, inundating low-lying agricultural tracts. While inlet channels efficiently fed rainwater into the fields, clogged, silted, and unmaintained drainage outlets failed to clear the runoff, creating a severe drainage bottleneck across the river basin. The breakdown in regional drainage management has left vast swathes of crops submerged, with Tiruvarur and Thanjavur taking the hardest hit.

On Monday, the crops raised at Kudavasal, Asoor, Melapalayur and Ogai in Tiruvarur district and Vilangudi, Villiyanallur, Semmangudi and Tenkaichi areas in Thanjavur lay completely waterlogged. The farmers said that the water has already stagnated for more than four days, and warned that another 48 hours under water would cause irreversible root rot and total crop destruction. The desperate growers have appealed to district administrations to deploy heavy machinery to drain out the water stagnated in the fields.

The farmers also demanded a comprehensive overhaul and desilting of the region's network of outlet canals to handle monsoon surges, pointing out their investments of at least Rs 20,000 per acre are now on the line.