Mettur:
It ought to have been a cheerful sight for the delta farmers, but this time the water from the Stanley reservoir in Mettur has not brought them the usual joy. That's because the delayed South West monsoon has slowed down in the Cauvery catchment areas in Karnataka.
Already there's a decline in the inflow into the dam. Unless there's more rain, there will not be enough water to save their crops. For farmers like Shanmuganathan it is a big gamble.
At stake is a total cultivation area of sixteen lakh acres.
In the last season the Kuruvai cultivation suffered a huge hit for want of water and a consecutive crop failure will cripple the rural economy. However the government is asking farmers to go ahead with cultivation.
"It should work well. We have done this before, opening the dam hoping for a revival of the monsoon," said Veerapandi S Arumugam, Agriculture Minister, Tamil Nadu.
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More than ever before farmers in Tamil Nadu are banking on the Rain God to replenish the falling storage.