CHENNAI: With the Central government’s assistance, the Water Resources Department (WRD) has chalked out plans to renovate, repair and restore waterbodies across the State to increase the storage capacity, availability of drinking water, agricultural productivity, and groundwater levels.
WRD sources said there were over 2 lakh tanks and minor irrigation sources in the State, but less than 90,000 are in use now. Most of these waterbodies have gone into disuse because of poor maintenance, encroachments, illegal use of land for construction, and the like. Thus, lakhs of hectares of land with irrigation potential have been lost in recent years, the sources said.
A senior WRD official told TNIE the initial plan was to restore 83 tanks in Coimbatore, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Ramanathapuram, Sivagangai, Tiruppur, and Virudhunagar at a cost of Rs 46.81 crore.
Work on 50 tanks has been completed, and the rest is under way. Once these waterbodies are restored, 14,462 acres of agricultural land are set to benefit.
“Work will also be taken up in Dindigul district at a cost of Rs 4.17 crore to benefit 1,865.40 acres of ayacut land,” the official added, and said plans are on to restore more waterbodies. For this, 60 per cent of the funds were given by the Centre and the rest by the State.
The official also said removing encroachments is a major challenge. Though the Madras High Court directed the State and Central governments to evict encroachers, the revenue officials, who are tasked with this, face problems due to political pressure.