With River Cauvery carrying 65,000 cusecs more water, the livelihood of over 4,200 fishermen across the district has come to a halt.
The river enters from Salem district to Erode district at Nerinjipettai and flows through Ammapettai, Bhavani, Karungalpalayam, Kodumudi and enters Karur district.
Over 1,200 fishermen, who are registered with inland fishing cooperative societies and 3,000 and odd fishermen who depend on the river for fishing across the district, were affected as they could not catch fish as the water flow is high.
Fishermen in Bhavani said that fishing activities comes to a halt when the discharge is over 20,000 cusecs as they could not cast their net due to pressure in the water. “Fishing using coracle is also difficult”, said Ponnaiyan, who is into fishing for over 20 years.
He said that their livelihood would remain affected until the discharge was reduced.
Fishermen in Kodumudi recall how their life was thrown out of gear when the river carried over two lakh cusecs in August, 2018. “For almost a month we could not go for fishing and kept watching the river helplessly”, said Dhamodaran, a fisherman.
Fishermen at Parisal Thurai said that their coracles were lying idle for over a week and they are unsure of when they will return to fishing. “Every year we face the situation during flooding when many fishermen go for other works while a few wait for the water flow to get reduced”, said Annadurai of the area.
They expect the discharge from Stanley Reservoir to get reduced in the coming days so that they can resume fishing.
Inflow drops at Bhavani Sagar Reservoir
Meanwhile, the inflow that stood at around 5,500 cusecs at Bhavani Sagar Reservoir on Monday morning dropped to 3,500 cusecs in the evening.
At 4 p.m., the inflow was 3,657 cusecs while the discharge was 850 cusecs in Arakankottai – Thadapalli canals, 500 cusecs in Kalingarayan Canal and 2,300 cusecs in Lower Bhavani Project (LBP) canal.
The water level stood at 95.95 feet against its full reservoir level of 105 feet while the storage was 25.675 tmc against the capacity of 32.800 tmc.
Staff Reporter
from Salem adds
Meanwhile, the water level at the Mettur Dam stood at 120.89 ft on Monday. The inflow into the dam was 66,000 cusecs and the outflow to the river Cauvery through the dam and tunnel power houses and 16 vents at Ellis Saddle surplus gates was 70,000 cusecs. The outflow though East-West Canal was 900 cusecs. The inflow at Biligundulu was 65,000 cusecs.
The stored capacity of water at the dam was 94,894 mcft and the effective storage capacity of the Stanley Reservoir is 93,470 mcft.
According to officials, the inflow into the dam was 67,000 cusecs during the early hours of Monday and it was reduced by 1,000 cusecs in the evening.
