Even as the northeast monsoon is likely to begin in a few days, even a modest harvest of the samba/thaladi crops in Tamil Nadu’s Cauvery delta region looks remote. Around 4.19 lakh acres of land has so far been covered in the current season. In the corresponding period last year, at least 2.5 lakh acres more was planted. It was about 6.88 lakh acres.
As more water release from the Mettur dam looks uncertain, farmers in the delta districts rely only on nature’s bounty. With no water released for irrigation, the dam’s storage was about 15.8 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft) on Friday morning against the capacity of 93.47 tmc ft. A normal northeast monsoon will yield 45 tmc ft in the Cauvery river system.
Asked about any possible increase in the extent of coverage, C. Ramasamy, former Vice-Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, shoots back, “When farmers themselves are not sure whether or not there will be sufficient rain in the coming weeks, what is the use in enhancing the coverage?”
