Minister for Dairy Development K.T.Rajenthra Bhalaji released water for irrigation of first crop from Pilavakkal Periyar, Kovilar and Sasthakoil dams on Thursday.
He said that water release would continue till February 28, 2021 from Pilavakkal Periyar and Kovilar dams. Water from Sasthakoil dam would be released till November 12 based on storage, inflow and requirement.
Periyar dam has a water spread area of 13.90 square miles and Kovilar has a water spread area of 9.57 square mile.
Periyar dam has 94.24 mcft of water as on Wednesday as against its maximum storage of 192 mcft. However, Kovilar dam has 3.59 mcft of water as against its total storage capacity of 133 mcft.
Both the dams have 0.08 cusecs of inflow.
While Pilavakkal irrigation project – comprising water source of both the dams -- has an ayacut of 8531.17 acres and for the first two days 150 cusecs of water would be released. For direct irrigation, 3 cusecs of water would be released till February 28.
With the available storage, Periyar canal would serve 229.41 acres of ayacut in Kansapuram and out of 40 tanks under Pilavakkal irrigation project, four tanks in Kansapuram, S. Kodikulam in Watrap taluk will irrigate 553.46 acres. The dam would totally serve 802.93 acres.
Based on the monsoon impact, more tanks under the project would get water.
With a water spread area of 0.308 square miles, Sasthakoil dam has a storage of 36.47 mcft. A total of 3,130.68 acres – 451.48 acres under direct irrigation and 2,679.10 acres through 11 tanks would be benefited.
With the water level touching the maximum storage level, the dam was reporting 20 cusecs of inflow.
Mr. Bhalaji urged farmers to make use of the available storage judiciously.
Collector R. Kannan, District Revenue Officer, R. Mangalaramasubramanian, Srivilliputtur MLA, M. Chandra Prabha, Sub Collector (Sivakasi), C. Dinesh Kumar, Upper Vaippar Basin Sub-Division (Watrap) Executive Engineer, Raja, Joint Director (Agriculture), Uthandaraman, Assistant Engineers, Chandramohan and C. Malarvizhi, (Periyar dam) and Jhansi Anitha (Sasthakoil dam) were present.
