Farmers in the district on Sunday urged the Central Water Commission team touring the district to assess drought conditions to monitor Cauvery reservoirs and irrigation tanks connected with the canals in Karnataka as the state was releasing water in the canals and storing it in the tanks.
The central team led by CWC chief engineer R K Gupta was accompanied by Collector (in-charge) Asia Mariam, RDO Manikandan and other officials as it visited the tail-end areas of Sellur, Ananthamangalam, Erukkatacherry and Annanperumalkoil to assess the condition of paddy fields and interact with farmers.
The farmers showed the team the dry condition of the paddy fields and conveyed that only if Karnataka released Cauvery water immediately would they be able to save Samba crops after a disastrous Kuruvai season.
The team then visited Cuddalore district and met farmers at Thoraipadi, Natarajapuram, Vallampadugai and Kodipallam villages.
Representatives of the Federation of Farmers Associations led by its general secretary Arupathy Kalyanam submitted a memoran dum urging the Centre to monitor all the reservoirs and connected irrigation tanks in Karnataka. Kalyanam alleged that Karnataka was wasting about 2,000 tmc water annually. Stating that Cauvery was the only source of irrigation for over two crore farmers in Tamil Nadu, Kalyanam appealed to the Centre to ensure the release of a minimum of two tmc water for 40 days to complete the transplantation and to wet the directly sown paddy fields. The transplantation would be completed around mid-November and water was needed up to the second week of February. Kalyanam also submitted statistical data showing how the net sown area and harvest in the state was affected gradually due scarcity of Cauvery water.
Mayiladuthurai MP OS Manian also submitted a memorandum to the central team. The team would submit a report in three days. The other members were PK Sivarajan, Director-Monitoring, CWC, Veerendra Sharma, Superintending Engineer, CWC; Pradeep Thakur, Deputy Director, Irrigation and Planning, and Manoharan, Director, Directorate of Tobacco Development.