Tamil Nadu faces severe water crunch, reservoirs 1 3rd full
Tamil Nadu is staring at a serious water crunch: its 15 main reservoirs are down to just one-third of their usual levels, compared to 92% last year.
The Mettur Dam can only supply water for another week, leaving Cauvery delta farmers anxious.
Now, everyone's hoping the northeast monsoon brings some much-needed rain.
Tamil Nadu needs 260mm more
Even though Tamil Nadu got more rain than expected so far (240mm), it still needs another 260mm this month to avoid shortages.
With less water available, many paddy farmers switched to direct sowing, and the paddy coverage in the non-delta areas of the State is about 1.3 lakh hectares shorter than what it was last year.
To make matters harder, the Cauvery Water Management Authority ratified the committee's recommendation that Karnataka release only a small portion of the water Tamil Nadu requested (just 3.88 tmcft out of the needed 20.7 tmcft), which means the pressure on local farmers isn't easing up anytime soon.