RAMANATHAPURAM
The district’s credit share of water released from Vaigai dam on December 5 reached Ramanathapuram Big Tank on Thursday evening.
The tank, which remained dry for the past two years, is set to receive almost three-fourths of its total capacity of 608 mcft.
Four days after Collector S. Natarajan received the water at Pathibanur regulator, the district’s entry point, the water traversed in Vaigai river for about 50 km and reached the Big Tank around 4 p.m.
“We received the water from Vaigai dam after a gap of two years and we are happy that the tank will have about 70% of its total capacity,” said S. Venkita Krishnan, Executive Engineer (Lower Vaigai Basin Division – Paramakudi), who, along with his team, was monitoring the flow of water into the tank at the entry point at Karukudi.
After the government passed two Government Orders, the district was allotted its share of 1,220 mcft of water from Vaigai dam, and Ramanathapuram Big Tank was expected to receive about 400 mcft, he said.
The water was released primarily for wetting the Vaigai to facilitate groundwater recharge and for catering to the drinking water needs of the people of the district, he said.
The district had last received its credit share of water from the dam on January 18, 2016, officials said.
Water from Vaigai dam was shared by Madurai, Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram districts in the ratio of 2:3:7 respectively.
As the northeast monsoon did not brought the expected amount of rainfall to the district and almost all the more than 1,000 waterbodies in the district were dry, the Collector took up the issue with Minister for Information Technology M. Manikandan who, in turn, requested Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami to release water from Vaigai dam.
As per the G.O. issued on December 2, the district was allotted 1,071 mcft of water, and as per the second G.O. passed on December 9, the district was given an additional 148 mcft of water, the officials said.
