KARAIKAL: Puducherry PWD officials at the Cauvery Water Regulatory Committee (CWRC) meeting this past week requested the release of Cauvery waters it is owed for the past three months, as well as shifting of the CWC metering gauge stations at the borders of Tamil Nadu and Karaikal (Puducherry).
The Puducherry government represented its demands during the CWRC and Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) meets convened in New Delhi on Thursday and Friday respectively. According to the PWD, the union territory has received only 0.26 tmcft out of the required 1.05 tmcft so far for August.
In July, it received only 0.18 tmcft out of the required 0.25 ft and in June, did not receive any of the 0.005 tmcft owed to it. "We requested through the CWRC to provide us the water so that we can use it to irrigate kuruvai crops in Karaikal," a senior PWD official told TNIE.
The officials also demanded that the Central Water Commission (CWC) gauging stations located along the seven distributary rivers from Tamil Nadu be shifted to the border points in Karaikal district. Farmers and officials for years raised grievances that having the gauging stations within Tamil Nadu was affecting Puducherry's water share.
Only two of the seven metering gauge stations along the distributary rivers are within the limits of Karaikal district, the PWD said, the rest coming within Tamil Nadu's delta districts. Earlier this year, a team of CWMA and CWRC officials inspected the gauging stations of rivers, present at border points, and also those located in Tamil Nadu limits far away from the border.
Puducherry PWD stressed through CWMA for swift action to shift the gauging stations to the border between Tamil Nadu district and Karaikal. "We learnt that a team from the Central Water Commission (CWC) would visit Karaikal this month as per the directions of CWMA to inspect and implement the demand to shift gauging stations, " the senior PWD official added.