A petition has been filed in public interest in the Madras High Court for a direction to the State government to construct check dams across the Coleroon river near Mayiladuthurai and Kumbakonam to charge the depleting aquifer in the Cauvery delta districts.
Due to indiscriminate sand mining in the Coleroon and Cauvery and its distributaries, groundwater recharge had been affected. The result, there is no sufficient drinking water for Kumbakonam and Mayiladuthurai.
For the first time in history, the famous ‘Mahamakam’ tank at Kumbakonam had gone dry due to depletion of water table, the petitioner said.
When the matter came up before the First Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice R.K. Agrawal and Justice M. Sathyanarayanan, notice was taken on behalf of the State government and the District Collector, Nagapattinam. The court posted the matter for further hearing on October 10.
The petitioner, K. Rajendran, an advocate of Mayiladuthurai, and a national council member of the BJP, submitted that every year a large quantity of water in Coleroon went waste into the sea as it was not being stored. In 2005, nearly 90 TMC ft of Cauvery water was wasted.
