Mettur Dam set to open for irrigation from August 15

Tamil Nadu Government today announced that water from Mettur Dam would be released from August 15 for irrigation in the Cauvery delta areas. Making a suo motu statement in the state Assembly, Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa said the water release would benefit farmers in cultivating samba paddy crop in 1.2 million acres.

She said since the rainfall under Southwest monsoon has been increasing in Cauvery’s catchment areas in Karnataka and Kerala, Harangi, Hemavati, Krishnarajasagar and Kabini dams are reaching their maximum capacity.

Consequently, the water level at Mettur last evening was 93.24 feet (maximum level 120 feet) with the storage 56.432 TMC (capacity 93.4), she said.

Traditionally, water is released from the Mettur Dam, the lifeline of Cauvery delta farmers, on June 12. But, this had been delayed in view of poor storage in the reservoir. Last year too, there was a delay and the water was released only on August 12.

A report from Salem said that a PWD official at Mettur said that the water in the dam was likely to reach its full level of 120 feet by next week. The dam was getting an inflow of 79,000 cusecs due to release of surplus water from Krishnaraja Sagar, Kabini, Harangi and Hemavati reservoirs in Karnataka, he said.