THANJAVUR: Despite concerns brought about by the El Nino forecast, agriculture department officials and farmers alike are hopeful of kuruvai paddy coverage in the district reaching last year’s record figure.
They attribute the unseasonal rain over the past few days and the comfortable storage level in Mettur reservoir as reasons. Normally around 40,000 hectares are brought under short-term kuruvai paddy cultivation in the district. However, during 2021 and 2022, the coverage exceeded the normal.
During 2021 kuruvai paddy was cultivated in 66,452 hectares as Cauvery water from Mettur dam was released on the customary date of June 12. While it was record acreage in 48 years, the release of the river water on May 24 -- well ahead of the stipulated date – last year led to kuruvai paddy cultivation being taken up in 72,816 hectares.
Though the weather phenomenon of El Nino is likely to develop in the coming months and affect the southwest monsoon remains, the Indian Meteorological Department has predicted a normal monsoon. This combined with a comfortable storage of 67 TMC of water in Mettur dam – as against its total capacity of 93.4 TMC -- and the widespread rains over the past few days in the delta region has brightened the prospects of kuruvai paddy acreage exceeding the normal.
During the Mettur dam release in 2021, the storage stood at 60.78 TMC while it was 89.94 TMC in 2022. "We are hopeful of this year’s kuruvai paddy coverage matching last year’s," said an agriculture department official. Already transplantation of up to 10,000 hectares of kuruvai paddy has been completed using groundwater, the official also said, adding that 350 tonnes of short-term paddy seeds have so far been distributed for the upcoming kuruvai season.
Farmers also share optimism. Mentioning farmers as having started preparing their fields by taking up ploughing using the rainwater, R Sukumaran of Kakkarai said other preparatory measures like procurement of seeds are being taken up. S Sivakumar of Manathidal said, "Farmers are ready for kuruvai cultivation and some are delaying sowing due to the non-availability of seeds with government depots." A nominal increase in the inflow into the Mettur reservoir over the past few days has only reinvigorated farmers’ hope.
While the inflow into the dam was 462 cusecs on May 1 it gradually rose to 6,871 cusecs on May 5 due to the rain in catchment areas falling under Tamil Nadu. The outflow was 1,503 cusecs as on Friday and the storage level at 102.05 feet (67.52 TMC) as against its maximum of 120 feet.