ERODE: Expecting the second phase of water release into the Lower Bhavani Project (LBP) canal, officials of the Water Resources Department (WRD) on Tuesday commenced work to repair sluices in branch canals.
The canal runs for a distance of about 200 km through Erode, Tiruppur and Karur districts. A total of 2.07 lakh acres of farmlands is irrigated using water released in two phases from the Lower Bhavani Dam.
The first phase of water release, which benefitted 1.35 lakh acres of farmland, was stopped on January 15.
R Easwaramoorthy, secretary of Lower Bhavani Farmers’ Federation said, “In the first phase, water was opened for 1.35 lakh acres on August 12. It has now been stopped. We have requested the government to release water in the second phase from January 21.”
Officials from the WRD of Erode said, “Farmers have demanded release of water from January 21, and it was forwarded to the government by the district administration. We expect a GO to be issued in a couple of days. Water will be released from January 21 to April 30. We have started preparations for this.”
He added, “When supplying water in the first phase, it is common practice to seal sluices of branch drains for the second phase with cement. The work to repair the blocked sluices began on Tuesday. Although release of water from the dam has been stopped, water is flowing through the canal. It will take a week for it to drain completely.”
The storage in Lower Bhavani Dam, as of Friday morning, was 101.75 feet. A total of 1100 cusecs of water is being released for Thadappalli and Arakkankottai irrigation and 150 cusecs for drinking water, sources said.