Water woes force farmers to ditch crop

MADURAI: Erratic monsoon in catchment areas of the Mullaperiyar dam and dry reservoirs have added to farmers' woes in Madurai district, forcing them to abandon the season's short-term crop. This is likely to result in a loss of nearly 90,000 tonnes of paddy cultivated on 45,000 acres of land in the district. Madurai and a few southern districts get water from the Mullaperiyar dam for irrigation.
Madurai East, Madurai West, Vadipatti and parts of Alanganallur were considered the district's bread basket as both kuruvai (short-term) and samba (long-term) crops are cultivated in the region. However, with monsoon playing truant for the last three years, farmers in the region have been in distress. Though they managed to reap a good kuruvai harvest last year, they suffered a setback during the samba season after failure of the northeast monsoon.
Public works department officials recorded only 5mm rainfall in catchment areas in Kerala on Tuesday. On Thursday morning, the water level in the dam stood at 113.5ft, with a storage of 1,476mcft. The inflow was 205 cusecs and 400 cusecs was released for irrigation in Cumbum valley. The water level in the Vaigai dam stood at 26.9ft with a storage of 264mcft and there has been no inflow. At least 40 cusecs is released for drinking water.
The combined storage levels of both dams should be 4,000mcft for water to be released for kuruvai irrigation. With the storage being less than half of that, it is unlikely that water would be released, said a PWD official. "It should have been raining heavily in catchment areas, but there was no rain for the last two days. Unless the monsoon picks up, the situation looks grim," the official said.
"We have suffered for three years and we can't afford another tough season. Even if we start tilling the fields now, it is too late to start cultivation," said A N M Thirupathi, a farmer from Kulamangalam.
The water for kuruvai should have been released by the first week of June. If the four-month crop begins late, harvesting will be affected and it will further delay samba cultivation, farmers say.
R Arulpragasam, a farmer from Thuyaneri said: they can't cultivate kuruvai and it has to be abandoned. "We can't afford to incur another loss so we have decided to go about with single cropping for this year.