TIRUCHY: Having served the needs of the delta for close to six months, the mighty Cauvery will soon be reduced to a stream as sluices as the Mettur reservoir were lowered on Tuesday evening.
With bountiful rains resulting in storage level rising sharply, Chief Minister Edapaddi K Palaniswami opened the shutters of the reservoir on 13 August last year to release water for delta irrigation.
During the last five months, the storage reached full capacity of 120 feet four times. The reservoir brimmed for almost 50 days, according to PWD sources.
More than 100 tmc has been released for the samba season. The current storage is 107.5 feet and inflow 300 cusecs. From Wednesday, 1,000 cusecs will be released to cater to drinking water needs.
Ramamoorthi, the chief engineer of PWD river conservation, told TNIE, 'With most of the samba crop reaching the harvest stage, demand for water has come down to minimal volume. For the past couple of days, about 2,000 cusecs were being released from Mettur. From from Wednesday, we will be releasing 500 cusecs which will be increased to 1,000 cusecs in ten days for drinking water needs.'
Ashokan, Joint Director of Agriculture department, Tiruchy said, 'Cauvery irrigates as much as 15 lakh acres in the delta region. Of which about 1.09 lakhs acres in Tiruchy was used for cultivating Samba paddy this season, which is considered the largest area of cultivation in the past five years. Since the river had fair flow throughout the season, almost all farmers have brought their crops to harvest stages.'
Also, he said that some farmers who had completed the harvest were involved in Navarai season using the available water from Cauvery river.
As for residents in the city, water flowing in the Cauvery after almost five years was a sight to behold. A scene they will miss for some time.