Water release from Stanley reservoir reduced as inflow drops

With decrease in inflow of water to the Stanley reservoir in Mettur in Salem district, the release came down to 60,900 cusecs on Monday as against the 65,000 cusecs the previous day.

The reservoir was receiving 67,000 cusecs of water as against 73,000 cusecs on Sunday, and accordingly the quantum of the water released also reduced, official sources said.

Karnataka was releasing 67,931 cusecs of water - 42,931 cusecs from K R Sagar and 25,000 from the Kabini reservoir, they said.

The water-level at Stanley stood at 120.94 feet and the available water at 94.97 TMC, they said.

Siruvani, the lifeline of Coimbatore, was also reaching to its reservoir-level after rain in catchments areas in the district and also in Kerala.

However, some political parties and organisations in Tamil Nadu blamed Kerala for diverting the surplus water to rivers and not allowing the water to reach the dam.

To protest this, the parties and certain outfits planned to stop Kerala government buses at the Tamil Nadu border on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, all the 14 dams in nearby Nilgiris district were brimming after moderate to heavy rain in the last few days.

As there was respite from the rain in the last two days, the administration, which decided to release water from Avalanche Lake on Sunday night, postponed the release to a later date, the sources said.

Though all the dams were full, the holding capacity has remained half of the full capacity, as the dams and lakes were not not desilted for the last five to six decades, the people in the area said.