After water was released from Vaigai dam on the orders of Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on November 9 for irrigation in the ‘old ayacut’ areas in Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram districts, Collector K. Veera Raghava Rao received the water at Parthibanur regulator on Tuesday by showering flower petals.
After receiving the water at the regulator, about 50 km from here, in the presence of Paramakudi MLA N. Sadan Prabakar and District Central Cooperative Bank president M. A. Muniasamy and former Minister for Information Technology M Manikandan, he released water from the regulator to the big tank here for irrigation.
After opening the shutter for the water to flow into the big tank, he said ‘we are releasing 3,000 cusecs (cubic feet per second) to the big tank. Water would be released to water bodies up to the big tank for the benefit of 67,837 acres of lands. Officials said the water would reach big tank in three or four days.
The Chief Minister had ordered release of 1,441 mcft of water for irrigation in old ayacut areas-III in Madurai, Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram districts from November 9 to 16, 386 MCFT from November 17 to 21 and 48 MCFT from November 22 to 25. The Chief Minister ordered release of 240 mcft of water to old ayacut area-I from November 28 to December 2 according to the storage capacity and flow of water into the dam.
Public Works Department (Water Resource Organisation) Chief Engineer S Gnanasekaran, Executive Engineer S Venita Krishnan, Assistant Executive Engineers G Sivaramakrishnan and Karthikeyan, Paramakudi Tahsildar Sathish Kumar and PWD Assistant Engineers Latha, Karthi and Anand Babuji were present.
