The Public Works Department has started releasing water from the Cauvery into irrigation canals of the district from Thursday bowing to pressure from farmers’ organisations.
Farmers staged an agitation here on Thursday in protest against delay in releasing water into irrigation canals, including Uyyakondan canal with an ayacut of about 32,000 acres. Though the release of water into Kattalai High Level Canal and South Bank Canal (SBC) at Mayanur bed regulator on the Cauvery river came as a relief for farmers, a section of farmers’ representatives said they were keeping their fingers crossed on whether they would get adequate water to sustain the samba crop in view of the poor inflow into Mettur dam.
Paddy cultivation
While the SBC irrigates hundreds of acres of banana, sugar cane and betel vine, farmers will shortly take up paddy cultivation in areas served by the canal between Mayanur and Pettaivaithalai. From Pettaivaithalai, the canal, as Uyyakondan, serves areas up to Vazhavandankottai beyond Thuvakudi on the Tiruchi-Thanjavur border.
