The requirement of water for domestic, industrial and agricultural use has increased manifold. The government is handling the situation fairly well in the first two instances. However no attention is being paid to issues affecting irrigation tanks, which have lost almost 50% of their actual impounding capacity. This has happened because vast amounts of water are discharged through damaged surplus weirs. This is worrisome especially in years of good rainfall. With a view to maintain the actual storage the government removes silt from the tank bed, an operation that is carried out at the deepest point of the tank close to the tank bund. The volume of silt so removed is not comparable to the volume of water lost through damaged surplus weirs. As a result of the vested interests meddling with the surplus weirs, as much as 40% of the storage capacity is estimated to be lost in every tank in every year of a good monsoon.
The authorities are fully aware of the fact that this is because the sill level of the surplus weirs is deliberately lowered to keep the encroached area free from inundation. The sill level of the damaged surplus weirs must be raised as detailed in the “Tank Memoirs” available with the Public Works Department. A solution would be to involve the beneficiaries of tanks who can have a say in the issue.
Anbalagan Ramasamy,
Chennai
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