If everything had gone well as planned years ago, Kerala would have been richer by 30 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet ) of water from the Cauvery river system annually. But that was not to be, thanks to the State’s failure to execute projects that could help it utilise the water awarded to the State by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal a decade ago.
The tribunal had awarded 30 tmcft of water to the State from the three river basins of Kabani in Wayanad (21 tmcft), Bhavani at Attappady in Palakkad (6 tmcft) and Pambar in Idukki (3 tmcft). The government had constituted the Cauvery Circle in the Water Resources Department under a superintending engineer in 2009 to investigate and coordinate the irrigation projects to be implemented in the river basins to utilise the water allotted to the State.
The plan was to have the Karapuzha, Banasurasagar, Noolpuzha, Manchat, Thirunelly, Thondar, Peringothupuzha, Kallampathy, Kadamanthodu, Ckekad and Chundalipuzha projects in the Kabani river basin, the Attappady Valley Irrigation Project (AVIP), Agali, Thudukki and Panthanthode projects in the Bhavani basin, and Pattissery, Thalayar, Chengallar and Vattavada projects in the Pambar river basin. The circle collected basic data of a few projects before it was wound up in 2011 for constituting the Kuttanad circle.
The proposals for two dams in Wayanad across the Chundali and Kadamanthodu rivers had to be frozen owing to public protest. The fate of the AVIP has been no different as the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change refused approval for conducting an environmental impact assessment study for the project. The decision was the fallout of objections raised by Tamil Nadu. Construction work for a few minor irrigation dams including one at Pattissery under the Pambar basin is progressing, but ever so slowly.
The Banasurasagar dam, the largest earthen dam in the country and the second largest in Asia, is located nearly 20 km north-west of Kalpetta and it was built to support the Kakkayam hydroelectric power project and satisfy the demand for irrigation and drinking water in the area. The reservoir was commissioned in 2005. Though the reservoir in the Kabani river basin was also aimed at providing 1.7 tmcft of the 6.7 tmcft of water for irrigation, the target is yet to be achieved even after around ₹ 53 crore was spent for the irrigation project.
If the project had materialised on time close to 2,500 hectares of land in five grama panchayats could have come under irrigation. The alleged delay in completion of land acquisition owing to dearth of coordination between various departments is the major reason for the delay in completion of the project. The Karapuzha irrigation project in Wayanad district is the first such a project in the State that was planned with a view to utilising 2.8 tmcft of water of the 21 tmcft awarded to the State by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal under the Kabani river basin.
But more than ₹315 crore having been spent on the project over the past three decades, the commissioning of the project remains a distant dream, thanks to the lack of coordination between officials of various government departments. The project envisages a dam across the Karapuzha river (a tributary of the Cauvery), a reservoir, and channels to irrigate 5,221 hectares in nine panchayats in three taluks. But it could irrigate only 601 hectares even after the partial commissioning of the reservoir in 2010. When the project was launched in 1978, the preliminary estimate was ₹7.6 crore, but the revised estimate shows that ₹560 crore is needed for the completion of the irrigation project.
As much as 1,238 ha of the 1,250 ha have been acquired for the reservoir and 126 ha acquired for the channels. If seven hectares of land could be acquired inside the reservoir for the purpose, the dam could have been commissioned in full. “It is the laxity of revenue officials in acquiring the remaining land for the reservoir that has led to the delay, ” a Water Resources Department official said. A special team was constituted exclusively for the purpose, but it was disbanded two months ago.
An attempt was made to raise the water level of the dam to around 1.45 metres a few days ago in the wake of nearly 62% deficit in rainfall in the district during the monsoon and in anticipation of a drought-like situation in the district during the next summer, but the attempt had to be given up after a long stretch of private land on the fringes of the reservoir, proposed to be acquired, got submerged in water. “We have now stored only 42.9 million cubic metres of water in the reservoir as against the total water storage capacity of 76.5 million cubic metres,” the official added.
The construction work of the main canals, measuring 25.54 km, was completed nearly three decades ago, but the full potential of the dam is yet to be utilised owing to the delay in full commissioning of the project, recurring breaches in the decades-old channels and dearth of distribution channels. “We are planning to provide water for irrigation in nearly 1,500 ha next year and construction work for four huge drinking water projects in grama panchayats in Sulthan Bathery and Vythiri taluks is under way. The delay in commissioning the entire project will adversely affect all the works,” the official said.
