Pic by G. Moorthy
S. Perumal (73) from T. Pudur near Usilampatti recently made his eleventh attempt to sink a borewell on his one-acre agricultural land, but all he got was dust despite going 1,100 feet deep and spending ₹ 1.25 lakh of borrowed money.
Mr. Perumal, who is now thinking of selling this last piece of land to repay debts, however, remembers a time, not in the distant past, when groundwater was available in his village within 50 feet.
Similarly, P. Chinnayosanai (85) from the village recollects how farmers in the region, which is dependent on rain-fed and well irrigation, once cultivated cotton, groundnut and paddy. “Now it is difficult to even grow fodder for cattle and we are, instead, feeding them neem leaves,” he says.
Mr. Perumal and Mr. Chinnayosanai were among those in the forefront of a long-drawn struggle demanding an irrigation scheme covering 58 villages and surrounding hamlets in the arid Usilampatti region, in as early as 1983.
Their struggle appeared to bear fruit when Tamil Nadu government announced a canal irrigation scheme for 58 villages, now popularly known as the 58-canal scheme, to cover 35 tanks and 2,285 acres of land, in 1996. Work for the scheme, which intends to bring surplus water from Vaigai dam through a 27.6-km-long main canal and two branch canals, including three aqueducts, began in 1996.
With 18 years passed since then and with the project cost shooting up from ₹33.81 crore in 1996 to ₹ 86.55 crore now, the scheme still remains elusive.
Public Works Department recently told the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, in which a public interest litigation petition was filed over the inordinate delay, that 96 % of the work was over and it was expecting to finish the project by March 2018. However, people in the region are less hopeful that the deadline would be met since similar assurances had been given many times in the past.
“Two years back, when we threatened to intensify our protest, the PWD said that the work was 96 % over and would be completed by March 2016. In March this year, it assured to complete it by September. Now, they have pushed the goal post to next March,” said O. Sivaprakasam, deputy secretary, Usilampatti Taluk 58 Villages Irrigation Farmers’ Association.
Leaving aside the pending work at the intersection of a branch of the canal with the Bodi-Madurai railway line, cleaning up of already dug portions of the canal that are filled with wild growth and few other works, PWD has claimed that the key pending works are the completion of an aqueduct in Mela Achanampatti and construction of a subway at Teppathupatti, where a portion of the aqueduct intersects with the road.
A visit by The Hindu to these two sites to see the progress of the work revealed that the claims of locals about the implausibility of finishing the project by March 2018 are justified.
P. Tamilselvan, a coordinator of Usilampatti Taluk 58 Villages Irrigation Farmers’ Association, alleged that hundreds of farmers had given up farming and many in the younger generation had migrated to other places for work over the years, owing to the delay in implementation of the project and consequent worsening of water crisis in the region.
“Had the project materialised 15 years back, this could have been avoided,” he added.
The locals are dismissive of the criticism that the project, even if completed, would not bring significant benefit, since it will get water only when Vaigai dam surplusses, which does not happen often.
“Normally, Vaigai dam gets surplus water once in three years. Moreover, the key expectation is not to use the canal water every year for irrigation. But when the 35 tanks included in the project get filled up, even if once in a few years, it would improve the groundwater table of the region,” said Mr. Tamilselvan.
“Also, the project envisages interconnecting all these tanks, which will help in efficient storage and use of rainwater,” Mr. Sivaprakasam pointed out. He also demanded that the amount of water that should be released for irrigation from Vaigai dam through Periyar Main Canal must be recalculated, considering the reduction in the number of tanks and cultivable land benefiting from it. “Why can’t this water be diverted instead to 58-canal scheme,” he asked.
Mr. Tamilselvan also ridiculed the concerns raised about the technical challenges, particularly in terms of differences in elevation, the project could face in bringing water from the dam. He questioned why the government spent more than ₹ 80 crore if it did not think that the objective was achievable.
Mr. Sivaprakasam also pointed to the tourism potential the project offered, particularly with the three three aqueducts, two of which are more than a kilometre long, making them longer than the famous aqueduct in Mathoor in Kanniyakumari district. “It would have been better if the project had included things like a walking trail along the aqueduct or a park. Nevertheless, there is scope for introducing them in future,” he said.
When contacted, a senior PWD official involved in the project expressed confidence that the project would be completed by March since failure to do so would be a violation of the assurance given to the High Court.
Mr. Perumal and Mr. Chinnayosanai, are among the very few people, who took part in the agitations demanding the project since its initial days, who are still alive.
“A couple of months back, my friend Panchathurai, who also took part in the struggle, was asking me whether we would see the completion of the project in our life time. He died within a week. I hope at least I would be alive to see water in the canal,” said Mr. Chinnayosanai.
ENDS