On Saturday evening, water was released from the Mettur dam to save Samba crops in Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam districts in the delta region.
Following poor rainfall and Karnataka’s refusal to provide adequate Cauvery water affecting crops in the delta region, farmers urged Tamil Nadu to release water from Mettur dam to save Samba crops. In order to assess the situation, the government formed 30 committees at the village level to evaluate the status of samba crops in Thanjavur, Tiruvarur and Nagapattinam districts. These committees carried out field surveys in 298 villages and discovered that a total of 22,774 acres, including 4,715 acres in Tiruvarur district and 18,059 acres in Nagapattinam district, will be affected due to water shortage. Considering the welfare of farmers, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin ordered the opening of two TMC water from the Mettur dam on February 3.
At 6 p.m. on Saturday, 6,600 cusecs of water were discharged from Mettur Dam for delta irrigation through the dam power house and the tunnel power house.
Officials from the Water Resources Department (WRD) officials have stated that water discharge will be adjusted based on demand from the delta region. They added that two TMC of water will be discharged over a period of three to four days.
On Saturday, the dam’s water level stood at 70.42 feet, against its full capacity of 120 feet. The storage level stood at 33.06 TMC against its full capacity of 93.47 TMC. Inflow into the dam reduced to 107 cusecs from 199 cusecs.
