THANJAVUR: Cauvery delta farmers who were worried about the depletion of water in the Mettur reservoir after cultivating Kuruvai paddy over a record area after 30 years have now started heaving a sigh of relief as flood waters from the Kabini reservoir in Karnataka are being released in large quantities. As per an official Karnataka government website, 43,933 cusecs is being released from the Kabini reservoir.
As per the final orders of Supreme Court, which is based on the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal (CWDT) awards, Karnataka ought to have released 9.19 TMC during June and 31.24 TMC during July.
However, despite the orders of the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) to release the monthly quota to Tamil Nadu, the upper riparian state of Karnataka released only 6.22 TMC in June and 10.92 TMC during July according to Public Works Department (PWD) officials in Tamil Nadu.
With this, the total deficit for June and July stood at 23.29 TMC. Besides this, Karnataka is bound to release 45.95 TMC of water during the month of August.
With the South West monsoon active in Karnataka and Kerala, the farmers of delta districts want Karnataka to fulfill its obligation.
"The delta farmers have cultivated Kuruvai paddy beyond the target. They were worried as the water level fell down sharply from 101.69 feet (67.04 TMC) on June 12 when the Mettur dam was opened to 64.21 feet (27.9 TMC) on August 6," said Sami Natarajan, the state secretary of Tamil Nadu Farmers association and a farmer from Orathanadu in Thanjavur district.
While expressing happiness about the increased outflow of water from Kabini, he pointed out that the Karnataka government continued to be intransigent in obeying the orders of the CWDT and Supreme Court. "The orders have clearly delineated the monthly quota. Even after the Cauvery Water Regulatory Committee (CWRC) ordering monthly release, it failed to do so in the last two months," he added.
"Only if the quota for the months of June, July and August is fully released this month and similarly the allocation for the months of September (36.76 TMC), October (20.22 TMC), November (13.78 TMC) and December (7.35) is released can farmers in the delta save the standing Kuruvai paddy and cultivate the Samba paddy," he added.
Hence he appealed to the state government to ensure the allocation of the water due for the state by raising the issue with the Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee (CWRC) and also the Karnataka and Union governments.