MAYILADUTHURAI: Cauvery river water released from Mettur dam, which entered Mayiladuthurai on Tuesday, reached the tail-end regulator at Melaiyur on Wednesday. Its distribution for irrigating kuruvai paddy cultivation commenced the same day.
Farmers and officials welcomed the river water upon its arrival at the tail-end regulator. The water upstream is then distributed into the branch channels for field irrigation. "All the channels have been desilted. The water resources department (WRD) has been instructed to start the distribution for field irrigation," Collector AP Mahabharathi said.
This year the WRD desilted A and B channels running to a length of 749.7 km at a cost of Rs 8.06 crore while the agricultural engineering department desilted 305 km of C and D channels at Rs 1.41 crore. According to WRD, the inflow at Mettur dam as on Wednesday is 209 cusecs while the outflow is maintained at around 10,000 cusecs.
The storage level is 97.4 feet as against the full reservoir level is 120 feet. At the Grand Anicut (Kallanai), the outflow is 2,907 cusecs. A total of 2,908 cusecs of the river water is being released into the Vennaru while 1,214 cusecs is being released into Grand Anicut Canal (GAC).