JOIN US A four-member technical expert team of the Central Water Commission (CWC) led by Chief Engineer R K Gupta began a three-day inspection of the Cauvery delta districts of Tamil Nadu on Friday to “ascertain the ground situation and the water requirements” of farmers.
Farmers here pleaded that even assuming a normal North-East Monsoon this year, which is yet to break over the state, they would still need Cauvery waters for at least 50 days to “save” the standing Samba (long-term) paddy crop.
The Central team which included P K Sivarajan, Director, Monitoring, CWC, Veerendra Sharma, Superintending Engineer, CWC, and Pradeep Thakur, Deputy Director, Irrigation and Planning, CWC, began their appraisement tour from the ‘Grant Anicut’ at Kallanai and travelled through the villages along the Cauvery’s course to reach Thanjavur by Friday evening, official sources told Deccan Herald.
The members interacted with the farmers in 12 villages to know first hand the ground situation, sources said.
The Central Team will visit Thiruvarur district on Saturday, followed by a tour of the Cauvery’s tail-end areas in Nagapattinam district on Sunday before returning to New Delhi where they will submit their report to the Cauvery Monitoring Committee.
Tamil Nadu farmers said that their plea for waters should be considered “sympathetically as they have already lost the Kuruvai crop this year.”