The state, particularly delta farmers, would be in for a major trouble if either the Supreme Court or the rain don’t come to its rescue in a month.
Senior state water resource department sources revealed to Deccan Chronicle that Mettur dam has water enough to feed delta crops only for the next 36 and half days.
At 4pm on Thursday, Stanley Reservoir stored 46.22tmcft (thousand million cubic feet), with 15,000 cusecs (15,000 for 24 hours = 1.286tmcft) discharged for delta irrigation through the river.
The flow into the dam declined from Wednesday’s 12, 258 cusecs to 10, 820 cusecs in the evening, a day after Karnataka chief minister Jagdish Shettar walked out of the ‘deadlocked’ Cauvery River Authority meet chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
On Thursday evening, the dam only received 10,026cuescs, including rain and contribution on the wayside from Biliguntulu.
“As per the government order, we ought to release 15,000 cusecs till January. The number would vary within 15,000cusecs based on the demand from Thanjavur,” officials said pointing out that if the discharge is maintained at 15,000 cusecs (24x7), the existing storage (46.22tmcft) would roughly last only for the next 36 days maximum.
“Maintaining 15,000cusecs will also be difficult as we ought to store water for drinking purpose and monsoon predictions are not encouraging as well,” WRD officials reasoned, and further explained that the flow would not reach the tail-end districts owing to low storage and therefore low pressure.