Farmers allowed to desilt tanks, use silt to fill lands

Move to desilt and clean up waterbodies in Ramanathapuram district

February 18, 2017 12:10 am | Updated 12:10 am IST - Ramanathapuram

Collector S. Natarajan addressing the farmers’ grievance day meeting at the Collectorate in Ramanathapuram on Friday.

Collector S. Natarajan addressing the farmers’ grievance day meeting at the Collectorate in Ramanathapuram on Friday.

In a bid to desilt and clean up the waterbodies in the district, the district administration has issued gazette notification, allowing farmers to desilt the tanks and kanmais and use the earth and ‘gravel’ to fill up their farm lands and for improving agriculture activities.

Announcing this at the farmers’ grievance meeting held here on Friday, Collector S. Natarajan said 65 kanmais have been identified in the gazette notification for desilting in the first phase and the farmers could take the earth free of cost for agriculture and other purposes.

He said the desilting of tanks and kanmais maintained by the public works and Rural development departments would be allowed subject to series of conditions such as the deepening should not exceed one metre and without causing any disturbance to agriculture activities. They should also ensure that no disturbance was caused to trees grown in the waterbodies by the forest department to provide nesting facilities for migratory birds, visiting the district every year for nesting and breeding, the Collector said.

The Collector has laid down as many as 37 conditions for deepening and desilting of the 65 tanks, shortlisted by the PWD Executive Engineer and Assistant Director of Rural Development (Panchayat) department.

He said the district administration has also decided to revive ‘Kudimaramathu’ system, the traditional system, under which, user community was given free hand in cleaning minor tanks and supply channels. The district administration would extend support to genuine community users, he said. “The whole exercise should be carried out without compromising the sustainability of vital ecosystem and environment,” Mr. Natarajan said.

The arid district was characterised by a large scale network of irrigation tanks. The district has 1,077 system and non system tanks in Vaigai basin, Gundaar basin and Manimuthar basin. Most of the tanks were dry as the north east monsoon failed for the second successive year. Last year, the district had received only 348 mm of rainfall against the normal rainfall of 827 mm.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.