Southern States - Tamil Nadu   

Samba prospects looking up

By S. Vydhianathan

CHENNAI NOV. 10. With the northeast monsoon and the Supreme Court coming to its rescue, the State is now in a slightly better position to save the standing samba crop on about 1.6 lakh hectares in the delta districts.

Though the coverage in the current season is less than 50 per cent of the normal area of 3.78 lakh hectares, there was apprehension over saving the crop in view of the poor storage in the Mettur reservoir. Thanks to the recent rains and the apex court order directing Karnataka to release water to Tamil Nadu, the Government is now hopeful of saving the crop.

Of the 1.6 lakh hectares covered, farmers in about 1.2 lakh hectares had to adopt direct sowing, i.e., without going in for nurseries, due to poor water availability. Transplantation is now in progress on the remaining 40,000 hectares, and is likely to be over before December first week.

The recent rains have also enthused those delta farmers, who had so far kept their land fallow, to go in for short-term paddy or some other crops.

Another 1.2 lakh hectares will be brought under cultivation in the next two weeks, reducing the shortfall in samba area to about 30 per cent.

However, farmers say the current storage of about 30 tmcft in the reservoir is not sufficient to meet the irrigation needs of the standing crop as it requires a release of at least one tmcft of water a day till January-end.

But officials say it would be possible to save the crop with the monsoon rains and judicious utilisation of water. But everything depends on how the monsoon behaves in the coming weeks and the release of water to Tamil Nadu by Karnataka.

Cumulative shortfall

Meanwhile, the cumulative shortfall in inflows realised at the Mettur reservoir in the current year (June 1 to November 9) has crossed 100 tmcft.

As per the interim orders of the Cauvery water dispute tribunal, the State should have received about 172.18 tmcft until last week.

But so far, it had realised only 69.83 tmcft, leaving a cumulative shortage of 102.35 tmcft.

Last year also, there was a shortfall of about 50 tmcft in the realisation.

But the storage of 43.805 tmcft during this time last year was enough to supply water for samba cultivation in the delta districts.

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