Standing amidst one of the last paddy fields to be harvested this season, Chandra Sekar, a farmer, plucks a handful of rice bran from his field and crushes it to dust between his fingers. “Ithu ellame pokki pochu, payiru varla (the rice has not formed, the bran is empty and the crop has failed),” he sighs.
Sekar is not alone as a drought that has struck Tirunelveli has led to a major loss in agriculture and left the Thamirabharani bare.
Only 28,243 hectares of paddy fields yielded success out of the 83,300 hectares that make up 2016-17’s annual target for harvest in the Thamirabharani basin. That means over 65 per cent of the crop failed. The river originates from the Pothigai hills in the Western Ghats and runs 125 km up till Gulf of Mannar and is the State’s only perennial river.
A field visit to the irrigation basin of the river bared the intense scarcity of water it suffers from what with most fields barren and water bodies empty.
Scared to sow seeds
“My land has been empty for a year now. I am scared to sow rice as there is no water for irrigation,” says Perumal Samy, a farmer of Mukoodal region in the district. While one half of his field is empty, the other half is dotted with withered plantain saplings. “Rice is water intensive, so we moved to plantain. But even that has failed as plantain too loves water,” he rues, adding that he is considering going for cash crop such as cotton, like many others in the village.
But the propects of growing cotton too are not bright.
About a mile from his field is another with dry and dark cotton stems. “We planted cotton, as paddy and plantain failed. If we do not get proper rain in the next couple of weeks, we are in for a heavy loss,” laments Mani Maaran, a farmer who owns a small field in the region that has black soil. “Our fields are fed by wells like these,” he says.The water bodies feeding the wells are not any wetter. “There are 441 tanks in Thamirabharani basin and 703 in Chittar basin. There is no water in any of them,” admits Tirunelveli Collector M Karunakaran.
Hydrology of basin
It is a complex system of river-fed canals, canal-fed tanks, tank-fed ponds and wells that irrigate the river basin. The fields on the plains of Thamirabharani are irrigated by one or more of the five sources: borewells, wells, tanks and ponds, canals and water channels or the river itself. All lands are classified into either river system-fed or rain-fed.
The river has seven anaicuts that were built during the pre-colonial times. The eighth one, Srivaikundam was built during the British rule. Along with eight dams, the river branches into 11 canals and several other small channels that carry water to large tanks in different parts of the region. The tanks, ponds and wells that are not fed by the system are fed by rain. The rain-irrigated lands are called ‘Vaanam paatha boomi’ (lands that directly depend on rain) in Tamil.
Highest deficit rainfall
The fields fed by rain are the worst affected. Rainfall data shows a sharp decline in 2016 as it is the year with the lowest rainfall in the last 20 years. The lack of rainfall has translated to a scanty flow of water in the river. The empty water tanks and ponds are speckled with new weeds of invasive species. Vast stretches of land that used to be water bodies are now barren.
Arumuga Konar (63) watches on as his herd of goats drinks water from a pond in the eight sq km wide Periyakulam in Vijayanarayanam area which irrigates over 10 villages. “This tank used to provide water for villages up to four km from here. Now it does not have enough to supply even the ones on the bund slope,” he says.
Indiscriminate sand mining
Seemai Karuvelam, Naattu Karuvelam, Erukku and other plants line the banks of the river. They grow in odd patches of sand mounds that look like a used-to-be islet, looking neatly cut.
“They have left behind that part of the sand and have taken the clean white sand around it,” says Barathi Murugan, an RTI activist who has been fighting to protect the river for over two decades now.
Standing on a bridge near Adhichanallur -- a popular archeological site -- he points to the stretch of Thamirabharani where the volume of water suddenly seems to be , which is why the fields near it are greener. “It is this 1.5 km stretch that no sand miner has touched. They have their eyes and ears here all the time. Strangely, the river bed in this stretch is inaccessible for lorries and that is what has saved it so long. Once access route is built, we will have no power to save even this small stretch,” he says.
Documented evidence showing the brutality the river bed faced stay neatly folded inside a small private library run by Kamarasu M, who has authored 41 books about Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Thamirabharani. “In the name of desilting, they take the good sand away, leaving behind the bad in the river... They even broke a bund to facilitate lorry movement,” he says, showing one among the innumerable pictures wherein a bright yellow JCB pours white sand into a heap within a square fence..
The white sand found in the river bed is the silt that is formed from breaking rocks. While it has higher water retention ability, the clayey soil beneath lets the water run off. “Since Thamirabharani is relatively short running and is confined within two districts, the sand deposited has taken millions of years to form. But sand miners have taken 6 to 7 ft of the soil, leaving the river with very low retention,” says Prof A G Murugesan, Head of Environmental Studies, Paramakalyani College, adding that most water that is not used for irrigation runs off as surplus due to the presence of clayey soil beneath the sand.
“White sand also has purifying properties. While it filters impurities, it also hosts bacteria that regulates water quality. With the sand scooped out, the water that used to stay in the river for months, drains into the ocean within hours,” he explains.
Plight of Papanasam dam
The seven dams built across the riverduring pre-colonial times were constructed with sand vents and sluices in a way that facilitates natural desilting during floods, says Nainar Kulasekaran (93), leader of Thamirabharani Pathugappu Peravai. Fondly called ‘Thamirabharani Thaatha’ by the locals, this former journalist has been fighting against industrialisation of the river for 70 years now.
In his little house in Nattathi, the old man stumbles and sits next to a shelf that explodes with files and papers. He runs his fingers over yellow gunny bags with files containing RTI papers that he has filed over the years. He claims that 30 feet of the 40-ft deep Papanasam dam is filled with slush constricting the space available for fresh water. C Chandrasekaran, a former Tirunelveli district joint director for agriculture, who has spent nearly three decades understanding the Thamirabharani basin, agrees with Kulasekaran’s claim.
Need to ration water
Town dwellers, farmers and activists point fingers at the lack of desilting, mindless consumption by industries and rainfall deficit for the scarcity. “I will not deny that industries contribute to the deficit. But the problem is also intertwined with lack of regulations in the Combined Water Supply Scheme ,” reasons Chandrasekaran.
The CWSS supplies water not only to Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi, but also to Nagercoil, Ramanathapuram and Virudhunagar. Urging the government to regularise the use and measure the supply accurately, he says the river water supplied for public and industrial consumptions is put to unsubscribed uses. “The public use the river water for washing and cleaning too. To prevent this, water should be rationed to communities in units based on number of members per household. Meters need to be installed in each hamlet. We cannot afford to use potable water indiscriminately,” Chandrasekaran adds.
The canal system that runs complimentary to the river is designed in such a way that it lies at an altitude higher than the river. Water released at the dams would be supplied through the canals, instead of creating the need to pump water from the low altitude of the river. “This altitude gradient has been affected following steps to increase the capacity of the canals. This, in turn, has reduced flow through the canals,” he says.
Chandrasekaran has engineering solutions to combat the crisis, while Kulasekaran suggests something out of his survival instincts.
“Paddy has borne the brunt of water scarcity. But millet needs just one spell of rain,” Kulasekaran says. Of the 15,400 hectares of targeted millet harvest, over 13,000 hectares yielded success. “Gone are the days where smart farming makes a difference. Agriculture needs variety for which consistent supply is essential. We may never see it until there is an active State intervention in restoring the river to its age old glory,” he sighs, as he tucks the files and papers back into its place.
Lifeline of the south
The Thamirabarani, that originates in Pothigai hills in the Western Ghats, is a perennial river. It flows through Tirunelveli district and thereafter through Thoothukudi district and drains into the Bay of Bengal.
Fed by the North East and South West monsoons, the river whose width goes up to 320 m and depth 30 m at some points supplies drinking water to Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Virudhunagar districts. Besides 8 dams and 11 canals, Thamirabarani has to its credit 20 integrated drinking water projects, all managed by the TWAD Board.
Home to a plethora of freshwater living organisms such as carps, eels and snakehead fish, the river feeds tanks that attract over 35 species of birds including bar-headed geese, painted storks, sandpipers and ibis.
(With inputs from M Abdul Rabi & C Aruvel Raj)