For the first time in decades, water to the 60-km Kuttiyadi canal, which is part of the Kuttiyadi Irrigation Project, will be opened on Friday without any cleaning or de-silting, raising serious safety concerns among people who live on both sides of the 45-year-old waterway.
“If the Irrigation Department has decided so, it will be for the first time that water will be flowing in the canal without the annual cleaning and de-silting works being done,” said Sathyan Karuvans, Kakkodi branch president of the Canal Protection Committee. Releasing water to the canal without the mandatory cleaning work would have serious consequences, he said.
For the past few years, the annual cleaning work was being done under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Before that, the work was carried out by private contractors entrusted by the department. It is usually done just before the water is released to the canal from the Peruvannamuzhi dam at the fall of summer.
Residents said the entire trajectory of the canal, which is an important water source to more than 25 panchayats in the district during summer, has wild growth and accumulated waste blocking its ways at different places. “There are even corpses of animals at some points of the canal, which is meandering through different settings, including wooded areas,” said Mr. Karuvans.
Usually, water from the dam is opened to the canal by the end of January every year. “This time, the opening was delayed owing to confusions over the cleaning work,” said K.N. Sivadas, Perambra Division Executive Engineer of the project.
“It will be a partial and controlled releasing initially, as a measure to overcome the possible hazards in the absence of the cleaning work,” said Mr. Sivadas. He maintained that the cleaning work could not be given to the MGNREGS this time owing to a directive from the Centre. “However, we are planning some work later in the month using the maintenance fund for the canal,” he said.
The protection committee is against opening the canal before cleaning it. “We do not mind even if the opening is delayed, but we want the canal to be cleaned before the water is released,” said P.P. Saju, committee secretary.
