LBP ayacut area farmers to approach court to protect their water sharing rights

Farmers in Erode fight for water rights in Lower Bhavani Project, planning legal action against Water Resources Department.

Claiming that wrong policies of the Water Resources Department (WRD) in releasing water to old ayacut areas without ensuring adequate water for irrigation in the Lower Bhavani Project (LBP) ayacut areas is affecting them, farmers has decided to fight legally to protect their rights as per the order of the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal 2007.

On March 21, farmers staged a sit-in-protest on the office of the Superintending Engineer of the WRD in Erode and wanted adequate water to be released for crops in the LBP ayacut areas. Since water storage is poor in the Bhavanisagar dam, they wanted water to be released from the Kundah Hydro reservoirs in The Nilgiris. It was decided in the meeting to meet the Chief Engineer (CE), Coimbatore Region and hold discussions on Friday.

Accordingly, office bearers of various farmers’ associations met the CE during which senior officials from Lower Bhavani Basin Division were present. The CE told farmers that water storage in the Kundah Hydro reservoirs is less than .75 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft) and ruled out obtaining water. Though the government had issued orders to release water as per five wetting schedules of water regulation, the current storage is inadequate even to meet the fourth wetting schedule, the CE told farmers. He wanted farmers to cooperate with the department so they could face the current crisis.

But farmers pointed out that the WRD failed to take decisions to ensure the rights of LBP ayacut farmers. “The current crisis is due to the wrong water management policies followed by the WRD,” they said, to which the CE refused. The CE said policy decisions can be taken only by the State government and said that he cannot decide on it. Farmers told the CE that they will approach the court to protect their rights.

At 10 a.m., the water level in the dam stood at 57.72 feet against the full reservoir level of 105 feet. The inflow was 38 cusecs, while the discharge was 550 cusecs into Arakkankottai and Thadapalli canals, 250 cusecs into the Kalingarayan canal and 100 cusecs into River Bhavani for drinking water purposes. The storage was 6.54 tmc ft against the total capacity of 32.80 tmc ft.