ERODE: As the water level of the Lower Bhavani Project dam (LBP) has drastically reduced, the Water Resources Department (WRD) planned to stop releasing water for irrigational purposes from Wednesday. The farmers have also insisted that the government should provide them a compensation of Rs 30,000 per acre if WRD cannot provide water as per government order.
On Tuesday, LBD had an inflow of 24 cusecs of water. The water level of the dam was 48.67 feet against its full level of 105 feet. The water storage dropped to 4.12 tmcft. Of this, 2.5 tmcft is for drinking and 1.5 tmcft is for dead storage. Hence, the WRD planned to stop releasing the dam water for irrigation from Wednesday. On Tuesday, 1,600 cusecs of water were released from the dam for the fourth wetting of the second phase of Lower Bhavani Project (LBP) irrigation. 500 cusecs were released for Kalingarayan canal irrigation and 100 cusecs were released for drinking water needs.
In this context, a section of LBP farmers demanded the state government to provide appropriate compensation for the crops if WRD does not provide enough water for irrigation.
M Ravi, Organiser of Lower Bhavani Irrigation Conservation Movement, said, “According to Government Order number 11, the WRD has to provide 11.5 tmcft of water from the dam with four intervals to 1,03, 500 acres of farmlands from January 7 to May 1 for the second phase. However, now the officials are planning to stop the water in the middle of the fourth wetting. This will affect the crops. Water should be provided to us as per the government order or a compensation of Rs 30,000 should be provided per acre of crops because in most areas crops like sesame, groundnut and banana are at the harvesting stage.”
WRD officials from Erode said, “We have already informed the farmers about the water scarcity and we have also said that we can provide water for irrigation only till April 3 because it is necessary to reserve water for drinking purposes. Only rainfall in catchment areas can provide water for irrigational purposes.” However, the officials did not respond when they were questioned on whether they would provide compensation.