Tamil Nadu govt rejects water dept's proposal to desilt dams due to funds shortage

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Government has rejected a proposal of the state Water Resources Department (WRD) to desilt dams, including Mettur dam, citing shortage of funds/

Department sources told IANS that the storage capacity of the dams could increase if they were desilted.

An official said that the Mettur dam presently has a storage capacity of 93 tmcft if desliting was done, the capacity could increase to120 tmcft in a few years.

However, the cost of the desilting work in Mettur dam alone could be around Rs 3,000 crore and the state government has outright rejected the proposal citing its poor financial position.

The state can generate supplementary revenue by seling the sand that is removed from the bottom of these dams during desilting.

Dams in Tamil Nadu, including the Bhavanisagar, Amaravathy and Sathanur, were also surveyed by the WRD and had subsmitted a desilting proposal to the state government.

While Tamil Nadu is facing a shortage of water, excess water in these dams flow out out as the capacity of the dams could be raised only by the desilting process.

The Central government, that generally supports the renovation of dams, will not provide funds for desilting citing environmental concerns.

WRD sources told IANS that they have already submitted a proposal to the state Water Resources Minister and senior DMK leader, S. Duraimurugan and explained to him the necessity of the desilting process and how it could help the dams store more water.