Dam keeps date for 17th time

When the Mettur dam opens on the scheduled date of June 12, it will be 17th time the water release begins on the customary date, since the commissioning of the dam in 1934.

Also, it is after a gap of nine years that the dam is to be opened during the month of June.

The previous occasion was in 2011, when water from the dam was released for irrigation on June 6. At that time, the decision to this effect was taken at a Cabinet meeting, chaired by the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, in May. The dam had a storage of about 87 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft).

It will be after an interval of 12 years that the dam is getting opened on the scheduled date of June 12. It was in June 2008 that the water was released on the due date when the storage was about 69 tmc ft.

In all these 86 years, the dam was opened on 10 occasions ahead of June 12. Consecutively for four years (1942 and 1945), the water release began even in May.