As water level drops, shutters of Papanasam dam may be shut

This may hit residents of Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Virudhunagar districts

The influx of water now standing below 2 cusecs in Papanasam dam in Tirunelveli district.

This is really not good news for the residents of Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Virudhunagar districts. The rapidly falling water level in the Papanasam dam that caters to the need of three southern districts’ drinking and irrigation requirements may lead to the closure of the reservoir during this week.

After the southwest monsoon failed last year, storage level in Papanasam dam did not reach the maximum capacity of 143 feet till August-end. Even as officials expected that the dam would overflow during the northeast monsoon, their hope was dashed once again since the monsoon that commenced in October-end, petered out within the next 30 days.

While smaller reservoirs such as Gadana (maximum storage level 85 feet), Ramanadhi (84 feet) and Karuppanadhi (72 feet), Gundar (36 feet) overflowed, Papanasam, Manimuthar and Servalar (156 feet) dams had water sufficient only to meet the ‘pisanam’ paddy season requirements.

As a dry spell scorched the catchment areas of these three prime dams since mid-December last, water was released for paddy cultivation in Tirunelveli and Thoothukudi district till mid-February. The release to meet drinking water supply and for the Thoothukudi-based heavy industries brought down the storage level to 17 feet now. With the influx of water now standing below 2 cusecs due to intense heat prevailing in the catchment areas, the dam in all likelihood is to be closed any time during this week posing serious threat to drinking water supply.

The TWAD Board, which has been entrusted with the job of ensuring supply of around 12 crore litres of water everyday from the Tamirabharani to over 28.50 lakh population through 27 combined drinking water schemes, has sunk 113 infiltration wells along the 125 km-long watercourse of the perennial river from Papanasam to Punnaikaayal where she enters into the Gulf of Mannar.

As authorities mull closing the Papanasam dam (maximum capacity 5,500 million cubic feet), which now has water for about 17 feet, this decision which will exert enormous pressure on the Manimuthar dam, the district’s largest dam with a maximum capacity of 5,511 mcft to meet the drinking water requirements of Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi and Virudhunagar districts.

“This is really a tough situation for us. Maintaining drinking water supply to the rural and urban local bodies through these drinking water schemes with the available water in Manimuthar dam till the onset of southwest monsoon in June will become next to impossible. So we’re sending proposal to the government to dig channels within the river to draw water towards the infiltration wells. If we can ensure flow of water around the infiltration wells, it will improve the supply by 10 to 15%. Though this is not sufficient to meet the demand, it may assuage the pressure to some extent, we believe,” said a PWD official here.