VELLORE: MLA M Kalaiarasu has appealed to the district administration to take immediate action to divert water to the Saduperi Tank on the outskirts of Vellore city, by desilting the supply channel to this tank from the Palar river which will raise groundwater levels in and around Vellore city.
“I find the supply channel to feed the water from Palar to Saduperi needs to be desilted urgently. As there is surface flow in this stretch of the Palar river we should make use of the opportunity to fill up the Saduperi tank. When once Saduperi gets filled up, it would recharge the underground water to a radius of 20 km including a considerable portion of the Vellore city. This would increase the ground water table in Vellore city, to revive borewells and open wells besides increasing the possibility of drinking water supply to villages and nearby towns,” he pointed out.
The MLA’s reasoning stems from the fact that the Anaikattu-hill-region constituency has received good rainfall in the past one week and the water from Agaram and Peryaru, both tributaries of Palar River is being diverted to a series of 10 system tanks in between Pallikonda and Vellore city.
However, Saduperi Tank with a capacity of 200 million cubic feet of water is missing out in this system-tank structure. It has received water from the Palar river in the past instead of from the two tributaries and spans an area of 621 hectares. With full capacity, the Tank can irrigate up to 1,500 hectares of farmland in the vicinity. The tank has remained empty for over 10 years, Kalaiarasu said.
The spillover from the 10 system tanks that is replenished by the Agaram and Peryaru drains into the Palar River and for the past two days, the stretch of the river between Pallikonda and Vellore has received surface flow. With water from the hilly region expected to continue to flow into the tributaries, Agaram and Peryaru, for the next 10 to 15 days, the water should be stored in all the tanks, including the Saduperi Tank, Kalaiarasu pointed out. In a memorandum submitted to the district collector, Nanthagopal on Thursday, the MLA has written that the Saduperi tank in the past received inflow from the Palar river but the supply channel to the tank at present is silted and has been in disuse for over a decade.
“Compared to other districts, rain-related damage has been kept to a minimum while the system-tank infrastructure is intact and functional. The only requirement is timely action to divert water to tanks so that water storage is sustained for at least one year,” he added.