Central team visits Cuddalore district

A report would be submitted to the Centre within three days about the water scarcity and difficulties in raising 'samba' (long-term) paddy crop, leader of the central team, currently touring Cauvery delta districts of Tamil Nadu to assess the water-situation, today said.

Chief Engineer R K Gupta was talking to reporters after meeting farmers at Thoraiapadi, Natarajapuram, Vallampadugai, Kodipallam villages in Chidambaram Taluk.

Earlier, the four-member team assessed the water-situation in Nagapattinam district for the second day.

The farmers showed the team the dry condition of the paddy fields and conveyed that only if Karnataka released water in Cauvery immediately, samba crops could be saved.

Representatives of the Federation of Farmers Association led by its General Secretary Arupathy Kalyanam submitted a memorandum urging the Union Government to monitor all reservoirs and connected irrigation tanks in Karnataka as the state was releasing water into such tanks also.

Stating that Cauvery was the only source of irrigation for over two crore farmers in Tamil Nadu, Kalyanam appealed to the Centre to ensure  release of a minimum of 2 tmcft for 40 days to complete the transplantation and to wet the direct sown paddy fields.

The Mettur reservoir this year was opened only on September 17 and so far, water has not reached the tail-end areas. Transplantation could be completed around mid-November and water is needed upto second week of February,he added.

Besides Gupta,other members of the team are P K Sivarajan, Director, Monitoring, Central Water Commission, Veerendra Sharma, CWC Superintending Engineer, and Pradeep Thakur, Deputy Director, Irrigation and Planning.