Taking the lead, slow and steady

“I have seen the Palar in its heyday, the river full from bank to bank during the monsoon and in summer, children playing in the river bed,” with groundwater on tap just a few feet below, recalls 80-year-old Jamuna Thyagarajan.

The description is a far cry for anyone familiar with a river, which has, in recent decades, become a metaphor for dryness. Thyagarajan settled down in her native village after an academic career and today, as President of the Vellore District Palar Protection Association, she is among those pushing for the linking of the Palar with the Netravati, a West flowing river in neighbouring Karnataka.

Over 25 local panchayat presidents will soon meet and jointly urge the Tamil Nadu Government to expedite the Palar projects. The association is also working to raise awareness of the need to conserve the river, which is now polluted by industrial waste.

Interlinking the Palar is among the priority projects of the Tamil Nadu Government. The State is steadily, even if slowly, pushing its plans, starting by linking its own rivers. The projects are estimated to cost over ₹9,500 crore: the Pennaiyar (Krishnagiri Reservoir)–Palar; the Pennaiyar (Sathanur Dam)–Palar; the Cauvery (Mettur Dam)–Sarabanga; the Athikadavu-Avinashi Flood Canal; the Cauvery (Kattalai Barrage)–Gundar, and check dams in over 250 locations. However, non-government organisations feel that while managing rivers within the State is a welcome first step, the true benefits can be enjoyed only when State Governments work together to exploit interstate rivers. But the situation is fraught with political concerns.

C Nallasami, President, Lower Bhavani Farmers Welfare Association, says the Athikadavu-Avinashi Flood Canal project’s natural extension should be linking the Bhavani sub-basin with the Chaliyar Basin to benefit from the surplus waters of the Pandiyar Ponnambuzha West-flowing rivers.

If the Tamil Nadu and Kerala Governments can work together, both can benefit. Even a hydel project is possible, with Tamil Nadu using the surplus water and Kerala taking the electricity, he adds. Thyagarajan says Tamil Nadu and Karnataka should work together to make the Netravati-Palar link a reality. The West-flowing Netravati, which the Karnataka Government hopes to divert to supply water to dry districts in Chikballapur and Kolar, can be exploited to supply to Tamil Nadu, also by linking it to the Palar, which flows just 20 km away.

Costing ₹234 crore, the finished Karur scheme involved construction of a 1,230-m barrage across the river Cauvery, about 250m downstream from the existing Kattalai Bed Regulator in Mayanur Village. Water regulation will be improved in the four off-take canals to benefit about one lakh acres of farm land. It will facilitate the diversion of about 5.4 thousand million cubic feet of surplus water from the Cauvery through the proposed link canal for interlinking the rivers in State – the Agniyaru, South Vellar, Manimuthar, Vaigai and the Gundar. In south Tamil Nadu, the State envisages formation of a 73-km flood carrier canal from the Kannadian Channel to drought-prone areas by linking the Tamiraparani, Karumeniyar and the Nambiyar rivers in Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts.

Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, in her address to the Planning Commission last year, expressed the State Government’s commitment to the river linking projects. The project profiles estimated the cost to be ₹41,250 crore, for which it has requested substantial financial support from the Centre.