The State government will ensure the completion of the long-pending Athikadavu-Avanashi Drinking Water, Irrigation and Ground Water Recharge Scheme in two years, Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami said here on Thursday.
Laying the foundation for the scheme, which has been a persistent demand from the drought-hit region for the last six decades, the Chief Minister said the State government had resolved to implement it with its own funds.
In 2011-2012, a Government Order was issued for preparing a detailed project report based on the recommendations of an expert panel led by A. Mohanakrishnan. The project report with an estimate of ₹1,862 crore was sent to the Union Government for implementation under the flood mitigation scheme. Originally, it was proposed to divert the surplus water from Pilloor to the tanks, lakes and water bodies in Coimbatore, Tiruppur and Erode districts, to benefit nine drought-hit nine taluks, he said. The Union Government said the scheme did not fall under the flood mitigation category and suggested that it be reworked as an irrigation scheme to modernise the existing irrigation infrastructure. Accordingly, the State Government began modernising existing Kalingarayan, Thadapalli and Arakkankottai canals with concrete bed. When the proposal was sent again to the Centre with an outlay of ₹3,523 crore, it said the project was not financially viable.
Check dam on Bhavani
Then it was proposed to have the surplus water drawn from Bhavani and use the 1.50 tmc surplus water by constructing a check dam across river Bhavani to fill the 32 Public Works Department lakes, 42 Panchayat Union tanks, 971 ponds, and thereby recharge the groundwater sources and enable indirect irrigation of about 24,468 acres.
The Government wanted to avoid the cost of power tariff for the scheme falling on the farmers. Therefore, it planned to install a 30 MW solar power plant on government poromboke lands with Nabard funding. The power generated from it would be given to the Tangedco in lieu of the power consumed by this project. The daily wage for plantation workers was raised to ₹316.60 from the present 311.60 in the private sector. The State-owned estates would also implement the new wage from Friday, he said. Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal, Deputy Speaker Pollachi V. Jayaraman and Ministers from the region participated.