At a time when residents of Mullankolly and Pulpally grama panchayats on the Kerala-Karnataka border are facing acute drinking water shortage, the Water Resources department is taking steps to channel water from the Karapuzha reservoir to tackle the issue in the region.
“We are planning to release five to seven cubic metres of water per second from the Karapuzha reservoir through the Karapuzha river, a major tributary of the Kabani,” V. Sandeep, executive engineer, Karapuzha Irrigation Project, said.
Water would be released at 8 a.m. on Wednesday on a trial basis, Mr. Sandeep said, adding that water was expected to reach the Kerala-Karnataka border in two days after conveyance loss.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people from Pulpally and Mullankolly panchayats constructed a temporary check dam across the Kabani on Tuesday to address the issue.
“When the water inflow dropped sharply in the Kabani adversely affecting the operation of pumping stations of the two local bodies, people came forward to set up a check dam,” Pulpally panchayat president T.S. Dileep Kumar said.
Over 700 people, including workers under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, members of Haritha Karma Sena, local residents, and members of various NGOs participated in the mission at Marakkadavu, where the pumping stations of the two local bodies are located, Mr. Kumar said.
Close to 2,000 sand-filled gunny bags were used to construct the 120-metre-long check dam at a height of two metres. It took nearly eight hours to complete the work, he added.
Mr. Kumar said once the proposed Kadamanthodu project materialised, issues facing farmers in 60 wards of Pulpally, Poothadi and Mullankolly panchayats would be sorted out.
However, residents of three wards of the grama panchayat were still opposing the project as they feared eviction from the project area, he added.
The Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal had awarded 30 tmcft of water to the State from the three river basins of the Cauvery such as Kabani in Wayanad (21 tmcft), Bhavani at Attappady in Palakkad (6 tmcft), and Pambar in Idukki (3 tmcft) decades ago, but successive governments failed in completing any irrigation project.
