This sprawling 1000-acre lake, third largest in Tamil Nadu, has been dry for over 15 years
KARUR: People from around 35 villages around Panjapatti lake staged a protest on Wednesday demanding the Union and State governments to release water into the water body.
Spread across 1,170 acres, Panjapatti lake in Krishnarayapuram is the third largest lake in the State after Veeranam and Kaveripakkam. It has storage capacity of 1.8 TMC, more than what the Mayanur barrage can store, and could irrigate around 40,000 acres. But water has not flown into the lake for more than 15 years.
People in the region have been requesting the government to desilt and fill the lake with surplus water from Cauvery, But due to its topography, no positive action, like lift irrigation, has been considered yet. The lake is not fed by any channel or canal but gets filled through a network of waterbodies.
Starting from the hilly regions of Kadavur, water flows through Palaviduthi, Tharagampatti and Mailampatti, filling up around 24 lakes and 124 ponds on its way. The surplus water finally reaches the tail end portion which is the Panjapatti lake. But as there is no proper rainfall in the Kadavur regions and as all those water bodies on the way were not desilted for many years, the Panjapatti lake is unable to receive water.
"For years, we have been requesting the government to bring the Cauvery water from the Mayanur barrage and fill it in the Panjappati lake. Successive governments neither desilted nor took efforts to bring water to the lake. Every year, more than 50 TMC of water from Cauvery on an average drains into the sea. If surplus water from Cauvery is diverted to the Panjapatti lake, there won't be water scarcity in our region," said Subbulakshmi, a farmer in Panjapatti.
Officials in the district administration said it was not feasible to pump water from Mayanur through pipelines as the lake is situated at a higher altitude than the barrage.