The realisation of meagre 37 cusecs of water in River Cauvery at Mettur on Tuesday is the lowest inflow into the Stanley Reservoir recorded during the current farm season.
With the inflow so low, the Public Works Department (PWD) brought down the discharge of water from Mettur Dam for the standing crops in the delta districts to 7,000 cusecs on Tuesday. The discharge was stepped down to 7,000 cusecs from 8,000 cusecs at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, PWD sources told The Hindu.
Following shortfall in rain and the refusal of Karnataka to release Tamil Nadu’s due share from Krishnaraja Sagar and Kabini reservoirs as per the final award of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal, despite the direction of the Supreme Court, the quantum of inflow in the Mettur Dam has been remaining low since the second week of December last year.
The dam has been registering below the four digit mark inflow on various occasions ever since water was released for the farm activities in the delta districts on October 2, 2017, much to the anxiety of both the official machinery and farming community alike.
The inflow has remained below three figure mark for the past six days. The inflow which stood at 75 cusecs on Sunday, 83 cusecs on Monday, went down to 37 cusecs on Tuesday.
The PWD had stepped up the discharge from Mettur Dam from 2,500 cusecs to 10,000 cusess on January 18, only to reduce it to 8,000 cusecs two days later on January 20.
The water level in the Mettur Dam has gone down by six feet in the last six days – from 53.34 ft on Thursday to 47.35 ft on Tuesday against its full level of 120 feet. The storage level was 16.184 tmc against the dam’s full capacity of 93.47 tmc on Tuesday.
