Ryots rue as Mettur misses release date 8th year

It has been a customary practice to release water from Stanley reservoir-the lifeline of Cauvery delta districts-every year on June 12, ever since the dam was constructed in 1934, and the water flow was to be maintained till January 28, when the Kuruvai, Samba and Thaladi irrigationseasons end.

With a meagre storage of 45.53 feet against its full capacity of 124 feet, the State government on Wednesday morning decided not to release water for irrigation.

State Public Works Department (PWD) officials said the dam could be opened for irrigation only when its storage level rises above 90 feet. The farmers of delta districts could not take up Kuruvai cultivation alone in more than five lakh acres since 2012, due to monsoon failure and refusal of the Karnataka government to release water to Tamil Nadu, they said.

The ryots of 12 delta districts in the State used to undertake Kuruvai, Samba and Thalady paddy cultivation in at least 16 lakh acres.

In the nearly 85 years passed by since its inception, the dam opening before the month of June happened 10 times, and sixteen times it opened exactly on the customary date of June 12. Beyond June 12, but within the same month, the reservoir was opened 17 times, 25 times in July, 10 times in August and five times beyond August, the officials said.

The State government had implemented special Kuruvai crop financial packages to the tune of Rs 56.92 crore and Rs 115.67 crore in 2017 and 2018 respectively to bail out the distraught farmers.

Mannargudi S Ranganathan, general secretary of the Cauvery Delta Farmers Welfare Association told media at Mannargudi that the State government should implement its special Kuruvai crop financial package this year also to aid the affected farmers. He also urged the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) to ensure that Karnataka share Cauvery water on a pro-rata basis every day, right from the beginning of the monsoon as per the order of the Supreme Court.

It was disappointing to note that the Karnataka government did not released water even after the CWMA ordered it to release 9.19 tmcft of water for the month of June from the Biligundlu reservoir to Tamil Nadu on May 28. The CWMA should take necessary steps to make Karnataka honour its obligation, Ranganathan added.