Solve water woes to save TN growth target
Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha are eagerly awaiting the northeast monsoon. The weatherman says rains may be delayed by a week, but they hope it will be a normal monsoon. Some states are already reeling under a severe water deficit. The delta districts of Tamil Nadu, for instance, are in the throes of a near-drought situation. Farmers in Mayiladuthurai are a worried lot, with thousands of acres of paddy withering, while their counterparts in Thanjavur complain of a significant drop in the average yield. They all blame it on insufficient Cauvery water.
TN and Karnataka have tangled themselves up in a new legal battle over the sharing of Cauvery water. Karnataka, which is also facing a poor southwest monsoon season, has refused to pay heed to TN’s request for its share of the water. Karnataka has blamed the scanty rainfall in the Cauvery catchment area for the lack of adequate flow into its reservoirs. After the Cauvery Water Management Authority and the Supreme Court intervened, Karnataka is releasing 3,000 cubic feet per second of water, while TN is demanding at least thrice that volume.
Being one of the most water-deficient states, TN already has a low per-capita availability of 900 cubic metres of water annually compared to the national average of 1,486 cubic metres. TN’s total water demand—for domestic use, irrigation, livestock and industrial needs—stands at 1,868 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) a year, while the total availability from all resources is only 1,682 tmcft. Equally worrying is that TN is facing unprecedented groundwater pollution from industrial effluents. Industrial regions such as Chennai-Manali, Vellore, Vaniyambadi, Thoothukudi and Tiruppur are encountering the threat of acute water pollution, says a recent draft report of the state planning commission. The report has opened eyes by clearly pointing to the need for course correction in the agriculture sector, which accounts for 13 percent of the state economy. TN, which is trying to become a trillion-dollar economy by 2030, will have to find ways to augment its storage capacity, encourage sustainable cultivation practices, substitute crops, and increase the use of micro-irrigation. It is imperative that the southern states continue to focus on agriculture to keep food inflation in check.