Farmers’ body moots barrage across Cauvery near Tiruchi

June 22, 2021 07:16 pm | Updated 07:16 pm IST - TIRUCHI

The district unit of Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam, affiliated to Communist Party of India, has urged the State government to initiate steps to build a barrage across the Cauvery between Mukkombu and Mutharasanallur in the district to prevent depletion of ground water table.

In a representation submtited to Minister for Municipal Administration K.N.Nehru here recently, Ayilai Siva.Suriyan, district secretary of the association, pointed out that the stretch of the river from Mukkombu to Tiruchi was heavily exploited for supplying drinking water to various cities and towns up to Ramanathapuram.

Huge borewells had been sunk on the river bed to pump lakhs of litres of water every day for the numerous drinking water supply schemes. The stretch of river between Mukkombu and Grand Anicut had water flow only for about six to months in a year only during Mettur irrigation season. During the rest of the year, the water schemes and agriculture fields along the course were dependent on ground water for sustenance.

“Even now borewells are being sunk for drinking water schemes and their expansion and the quantum of water pumped from the river bed is set to increase in future. There is a possibility of ground water depletion and the drinking water sources and agricultural fields may not get adequate water when there is no flow in the river,” Mr.Suriyan said.

The check dam, built near Kambarasampettai following a request of farmers when the Ramanathapuram combined drinking water supply scheme was implemented, had been of much benefit. Similarly, construction of a barrage between Mukkombu and Mutharasanallur, with a capacity to shore up about one tmc (thousand million cubic feet) of water would greatly help in preventing depletion of ground water on the stretch, Mr.Suriyan suggested.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.