The Hindu : Suspense over water release ends

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 08, 2002

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Suspense over water release ends

By A.V.Ragunathan

SALEM Sept. 7. The suspense over Karnataka releasing water in the Cauvery ended with a special team of the Tamil Nadu Public Works Department ``sighting freshes'' in the Cauvery near Kollegal late this evening.

Sources in the PWD here said Karnataka was supposed to have released 1.25 tmcft on Wednesday night, as a sequel to the Supreme Court order. Normally, water should have reached the Mettur reservoir this morning. But, in the absence of any sign of `arrival', indicated by an increased inflow, the authorities decided to depute two special teams towards Karnataka to find out whether they could see `freshes' upstream.

One of the teams reported that the flow at the point near Kollegal could be in the region of 10,000 cusecs.

The sources said that at the present rate, the water could reach Mettur on Sunday, when the Cauvery River Authority is also scheduled to meet in New Delhi.

In the absence of any official communication from Karnataka and the poor inflow in Mettur now, the PWD officials were a worried lot.

The sources said they were concerned because even after a lapse of 72 hours of water release, the water did not materialise in the reservoir. The inflow continued to be a meagre 2,372 cusecs as against an outflow of 14,154 cusecs (as on Saturday evening).

The sources said a decision was taken to release water for delta irrigation at 15,000 cusecs, in the expectation that water released from Karnataka would reach Mettur by today.

But at this critical juncture, when delta farmers were busy preparing for sowing of the samba crop, there appeared a fresh snag. Unless water reached Mettur at least by tomorrow, the sources said, the Government would have to review the decision on the quantum of release.

With a total communication blackout from the Karnataka side, the officials here were frantically trying to glean whatever information they could.

They had been watching the inflow into the Mettur dam, but were disappointed, because till now there was no clue to the ``promised'' water flowing into the reservoir.

In frantic efforts to gather details, two teams of officials went to Kollegal and Biligundlu to see for themselves whether Cauvery had received any freshes. Though they were not equipped with measuring instruments, they could gauge the flow by sight.

The authorities now hope that once the inflow begins, it will be sustained for some days as the Government and the farmers have already planned agricultural operations for a `delayed season'.

Responding to a question, K. Sundaram of the Tamilaga Vivasayigal Sangam, and R.Pongiannan, president of the Left Bank Canal Farmers' Association, said the expectations of the farmers had been raised and they hoped that things would fall into place.

Govt. monitoring situation

The level in the Mettur dam stood at 66.080 ft and the capacity was 29.424 tmcft.

S. Vydhianathan reports from Chennai:

In Chennai, official sources said it would normally take two days for water to reach Biligundlu, but because of the poor flow in the Cauvery it could take more time now. Karnataka had confirmed releasing the water. The Government was constantly monitoring the position, the sources said.

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