To facilitate the repairs, the water pumping station serving Cauvery IV Stage, Phase II, will be shut down.
| Photo Credit: File photo

Health workers conduct door-to-door surveys as the Health Department intensifies surveillance and preventive measures following a rise in diarrhoea cases in Giripuram of Vijayawada on Monday.
| Photo Credit: G.N. RAO

The hot winds sweeping across the ancient Kallanai, which should be brimming with water by now, are raising temperatures across the Cauvery delta this year. A weak southwest monsoon and the vexed inter-State river water sharing dispute with Karnataka have left farmers in the region in distress yet again.

As the Stanley Reservoir at Mettur could not be opened on the customary date of June 12 owing to insufficient storage, a majority of farmers in the delta, for whom the Cauvery is the lifeline, have not been able to cultivate paddy this kuruvai (kharif) season. With the Super El Nino effect looming large, farmers are worried about the prospects of the forthcoming samba crop too.

Over the past few months, the flow into the Mettur dam from Karnataka has been meagre. Tamil Nadu realised just 2.915 thousand million cubic feet (tmc ft) in the Cauvery from Karnataka in June, against the 9.19 tmc ft stipulated for the month by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal and the Supreme Court.

Consequently, after a record coverage in 2025, when kuruvai paddy was raised on over six lakh acres against the normal area of about 4.4 lakh acres, agricultural fields across the delta, irrigated by a network of rivers and canals, are lying fallow. Announcing the kuruvai special package, the State government said the crop could be raised on about 3.55 lakh acres with groundwater. But farmers claim that only 1.5 lakh acres would be covered in the filter point areas in the core delta districts, largely in Thanjavur and Tiruvarur.

The kuruvai cultivation area in Thanjavur has come down to around 89,000 acres this season from around 1,94,000 acres in the previous cultivation year. In Tiruvarur, the coverage area has dwindled to around 64,000 acres from around 1,91,000 acres in 2025-26, say district officials.

A section of farmers who had raised the crop using groundwater is complaining about erratic three-phase power supply. Complaints of withering crops have been reported in a few places in the delta.

Cultivation with groundwater

R. Arivazhagan, a farmer of Olaidevarayanpettai in Thanjavur district, has raised kuruvai paddy on six acres with groundwater. He explains the issues in cultivation with groundwater. Though he has raised the crop, many of his fellow villagers are not able to do so owing to the depletion in the groundwater table as the rivers are dry. “My neighbour is drilling a fresh borewell and the yield from my borewell is going down too. There are disruptions in three-phase power supply owing to voltage drops and other issues. I am not sure whether I will be able to see through my 25-day-old crop over the next three months,” he says.

Several farmers who had taken up summer ploughing in anticipation of water release from the Mettur dam have burnt their fingers. “Many of us had taken up summer ploughing twice by spending at least ₹1,500 an acre each time, expecting water discharge by mid-June. But we could not go in for the kuruvai crop and our lands are lying fallow. Farm labourers have been rendered jobless. The entire rural economy has been badly affected,” says R. Pandidurai, a farmer of Seelathanallur in Tiruvarur.

Farmers demand that the entire State, especially the delta districts, be declared drought-hit so that they can avail themselves of relief, including compensation under the ‘prevented sowing/planting risk’ (due to adverse weather) clause of the Prime Minister’s Crop Insurance Scheme. “We had kept the fields ready after ploughing, but there was no flow in the Cauvery. Farmers in Nagapattinam district have been hit as we don’t have too many borewells, except in the Thirumarugal area. We hope we will get some compensation under the crop insurance scheme,” says Karunainathan of Vedaranyam.

Mahadhanapuram Rajaram, a veteran farmers’ leader and president of the Cauvery Irrigation Farmers Welfare Association, says, “We estimate that the delta farmers stand to lose about ₹1,125 crore as they have not been able to raise kuruvai crop. It would also trigger fodder shortage in the coming months. If the samba or thaladi crops too were affected by drought or rain at harvest stages, the financial burden on the State would be heavier.”

“We could face a production loss of up to 15 lakh tonnes of paddy this season. More importantly, the loss of the crop could lead to migration of farm labourers as they look for other sources of income,” says Cauvery Dhanapalan, president, Tamil Nadu Vivasaya Sangankalin Kootuiyakkam.

“The inflow and the storage at Mettur are still not encouraging. We doubt whether the government will manage to get water from Karnataka. The prediction of a weak monsoon due to the El Nino effect has cast a shadow over the samba crop too,” Mr. Pandidurai says. The dam had just 38 tmc ft of water against its capacity of 93.47 tmc ft, and the inflow was hovering at 125 cusecs last week. The dam, which was at its full capacity during the same time last year, needs substantial inflows in the coming weeks for the government to decide on water discharge for the samba season.

P.R. Pandian of the Coordination Committee of All Farmers Associations of Tamil Nadu says the lack of Cauvery water has endangered the livelihood of farmers in the delta this year. “The southwest monsoon has been scanty, and is going to end soon. It has been predicted that the State may get less than normal rainfall during the northeast monsoon too. We may go in for the samba crop with direct sowing, pinning our hopes on the monsoon. But the question is whether we will be able to protect the crop through the season. Unless the monsoon comes to our aid, we have a very precarious situation,” he says. “Only if water is released from the Mettur dam by August can farmers safely raise long-duration varieties during the samba season. If the water release is delayed further, they can only go in for medium or short-term varieties,” says Mr. Dhanapalan.

‘Declare delta as drought-hit’

Mr. Pandian says it is time the government declared the delta ‘drought-hit’ and started rolling out relief measures. “It should provide drought relief as was done by the Jayalalithaa government some years ago. The government should provide ₹15,000 an acre as relief for the kuruvai loss,” he says, adding that the government should also support farmers raising the samba crop using groundwater by providing seeds and diesel at subsidised rates.

Farmers organisations say the kuruvai special package, announced by the government, has not been of much help. “Though the government had said farmers would be given the support for two acres, officials here say we will get it only for one acre each as there have been a number of applications. The application process is cumbersome, and we are required to submit several documents such as bills for machine planting, photos of farmers in the field, besides the land records. We have to spend considerable time and effort in submitting these papers for a meagre financial support,” Mr. Arivazhagan says, calling for simplifying the application process.

“The special package is inadequate to meet the requirements of farmers. Since there has been a large number of applications, the allocation should be increased,” says Swamimalai Vimalnathan, secretary, Tamil Nadu Cauvery Farmers Protection Association.

He wants the government to come up with a special samba package too as farmers who were not able to raise the kuruvai crop will plant samba, pinning their hopes on a good monsoon. He suggests that as a special case, the government provide free farm connections to those who have been waiting for long so that more farmers can take up cultivation using groundwater.

Delta farmers also take a critical view of Food Minister P. Venkataramanan’s reported suggestion that farmers go in for alternative crops in view of the water shortage. “Before making such suggestions, the government should carry out a proper study and identify crops which are suitable for the different soil conditions in the delta region. Such crops should also be able to withstand the monsoon. But there seems to be no plan or effort in this direction,” says Mr. Vimalnathan.

“Karnataka has been releasing only the surplus water and does not agree to the distress-sharing formula. We have not even got half of June’s quota of water and there is no guarantee that Karnataka will release our share in July or August. Tamil Nadu should sanction relief to the farmers and can mobilise funds by claiming compensation from Karnataka for the crop losses,” says V. Jeevakumar, a farmers leader of Budalur.

Running from pillar to post

D. Abraham of Kanarpatti in Tirunelveli district had sold over 7.50 tonnes of paddy to the National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India nine months ago. But he is still running from pillar to post to get his payment of ₹1.86 lakh. His family expenses forced him to not only pledge his jewels but also to pay interest for them till date.

The plight of Mr. Abraham, who is the district secretary of the Coordination Committee of Tamil Nadu All Farmers’ Associations, is not unique. The Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam  government’s announcement on waiver of cooperative crop loans came as a jolt to the farmers who pointed to the gap between what the TVK had promised before the election and what it announced after coming to power.

The TVK manifesto had promised a complete loan waiver for small and marginal farmers who own up to 5 acres of land and a 50% waiver for the others. On May 25 this year, the government announced that only loans of up to ₹50,000 would be waived fully for marginal farmers. For loans exceeding ₹50,000, the waiver ranged between ₹5,000 and ₹40,000.

Effectively, a marginal farmer with a loan of over ₹1 lakh would get only ₹5,000 as relief. It was worse for small farmers as only 50% of loans up to ₹50,000 were waived. For the rest, the waiver ranged from ₹5,000 to ₹20,000. This triggered massive protests by farmers across the State.

‘Let down by the TVK government’

“While the poll promise of the TVK spoke only about total loan waiver for all farmers based on their land holdings, the government introduced ceilings. Farmers had voted for the TVK based on its promises, but we feel let down,” says R. Rampandian, of Aruppukottai, a functionary of Southern District Farmers’ Association.

The government blamed the Reserve Bank of India’s Model Operating Procedure, which mandates that States implementing loan waivers must settle the entire amount to co-operative banks within 45 to 60 days. It also blamed the State’s finances.

With all major political parties, including the DMK, the AIADMK, and the BJP, backing the farmers, they vowed to continue their protest till the ruling TVK implemented its poll promise. The government responded by announcing a revised loan waiver scheme on June 16.

It promised total waiver of loans up to ₹75,000 for all farmers irrespective of land holdings. For loans above ₹75,000, the waiver was restricted to ₹35,000 per farmer. But the farmers remain dissatisfied and their protests continue.

Maharashtra model

The Maharashtra government’s announcement that a complete waiver of farm loans up to ₹2 lakh would be sanctioned has further fuelled anger among farmers. “Won’t the RBI norms apply to Maharashtra? Why cannot Tamil Nadu follow suit,” asked  N.A. Ramachandra Raja of Tamilaga Vivasayigal Sangam. Of the 600 farmers who had borrowed from the Singarajakottai Primary Agricultural Cooperative Society in Rajapalayam, only 170 will benefit from the waiver, he said.

Why do farmers demand loan waivers? They complain that their occupation has become a gamble amid the adverse impact of climate change. “Each year, several farmers part with their farmland unable to handle the crop loss they face. The government needs to incentivise grain production,” Mr. Ramachandra Raja says.

The farmers point out that farmers in Maharashtra, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh are being given ₹6,000 to ₹10,000 as incentive to sustain food production. While a farmer sells one quintal of paddy for ₹2,450, he buys a 50-kg bag of complex fertilizer for ₹2,100, Mr.  Ramachandra Raja points out.

Mr. Abraham adds, “If the farmer wants to increase the yield, he has to apply potash, costing ₹2,400 [50-kg bag]. And the cost of pesticides has also skyrocketed.”

In addition, the farmers face shortage of workers during peak farming season as the workers prefer MGNREGS  work.

“Even after we undergo all these hardships to raise the paddy, the government is in no mood to give us a fair remuneration. In a situation where the farmers cannot fix the price of their produce, we have no other option but to demand crop loan waiver to sustain farming,” he says.

The Swaminathan Committee had recommended that the Minimum Support Price for crops should at least be 50% more than the comprehensive cost of production. “If its recommendation is implemented, we would not need crop loan waiver or fertilizer subsidy. It is now the bounden duty of the government to provide crop loan waiver,” says Mr. Perumbadaiyar of Tamil Nadu Vivasayigal Sangam in Tirunelveli.

(With inputs from V. Venkatasubramanian in Thanjavur, S. Sundar in Madurai, and P. Sudhakar in Tirunelveli)

Residents continue to manually carry water to their homes. There is no water supply in the hand pumps installed in some homes, and even if there is water, it is of poor quality, they say. 

CM Rekha Gupta handing a power connection notice to a resident in the presence of North East Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari.
| Photo Credit: ANI

Polavaram irrigation project receives huge inflow of flood water in West Godavari district
| Photo Credit: BY ARRANGEMENT

Comets may have been responsible for the presence of water on Earth, scientists have claimed, according to a new research published this week in Science Advances. The researchers focused on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and discovered that the molecular structure of water found on the celestial body closely resembled that of Earth’s oceans. While water existed in the gas and dust form when Earth formed around 4.6 billion years ago, questions regarding how it ultimately became rich in liquid water have puzzled scientists.

Researchers are of the view that a substantial portion of our oceans came from the ice and minerals on asteroids and possibly comets that crashed into Earth. To further their theory, the researchers led by Kathleen Mandt, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, decided to use an advanced statistical computation technique to find the molecular structure of water on 67P which belongs to the Jupiter family of comets, using data captured by European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta mission to the asteroid.

Also Read | Mysterious ‘Dark Comets’ May Pose Bigger Threat Than Previously Thought To Earth

Earth’s specific signature

The water on Earth has a unique molecular signature which has to do with specific rations of the hydrogen variant, or isotope, called deuterium. For the last few decades, deuterium levels in water found in the vapour trails of several Jupiter-family comets displayed similar levels to that of Earth’s water.

“So I was just curious if we could find evidence for that happening at 67P. And this is just one of those very rare cases where you propose a hypothesis and actually find it happening,” said Ms Mandt.

As it turned out, Ms Mandt’s team found a clear connection between deuterium measurements in the comet and the amount of dust around the Rosetta spacecraft.

“As a comet moves in its orbit closer to the Sun, its surface warms up, causing gas to release from the surface, including dust with bits of water ice on it. Water with deuterium sticks to dust grains more readily than regular water does,” the study highlighted.

“When the ice on these dust grains is released into the coma, this effect could make the comet appear to have more deuterium than it has,” it added.

The research has big implications not only for understanding comets’ role in delivering Earth’s water but also for understanding comet observations that provide insight into the formation of the early solar system.

Neat rows of vegetable and fruit plants in a portion of the 4.50-hectare agricultural land, a 3.3-KV solar power panel running pumps and other electrical appliances, slim polyethylene hoses for drip irrigation, and uniformly spaced trees form part of some innovative practices adopted by farmer Bhanwar Lal Meel at Lalasi village in Rajasthan’s Sikar district.

Mr. Meel, 41, who has studied till Class 12, has made innovations in traditional practices and adopted new techniques to turn farming on his ancestral land into a profitable venture amid the decline in the groundwater level and erratic rainfall. A pond constructed in his field last year, utilising the subsidy under the Prime Minister’s Krishi Sinchayee Yojana, provides an additional support to farming by storing rainwater.

Mr. Meel is among a bunch of farmers in Shekhawati region who have adopted new techniques for optimum utilisation of water and getting remunerative prices for agricultural produce. The expertise at the farmland has led to significant expansion in the sowing area for crops and vegetables, higher yield, and enhanced annual income per hectare of land.

A major concern

The decline in the groundwater level is a major issue for agriculturists in all four districts of Shekhawati — Sikar, Jhunjhunu, Churu, and Neem Ka Thana.

As the production of crops has declined, farmers have started cultivating vegetables, as they can get eight times the yield with just 25% labour compared with traditional farming. The sowing area of vegetables has almost doubled in the last 10 years.

Farmer Mahesh Pachar in Sikar tehsil’s Jheegar Bari village has adopted rainwater harvesting techniques on his seven-acre land and established a climate-controlled polyhouse in an area measuring 1,000 square metres for growing vegetables. “The polyhouse remains vacant only from April to June. The rest of the year, I grow a good quantity of fruits, vegetables, and flowers,” he said.

Sundaram Verma of Danta village has developed techniques to grow crops with less water and conserve water in the arid regions. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 2020 for developing ‘dryland agroforestry’, a method to help tree plantation efforts.

Bhanwar Lal of Sarwari village in Sikar’s Dhod block has established a processing plant for gooseberries grown in his fields and started producing candy, powder, and murabba (sweet fruit preserve), which fetch him an annual profit of ₹15 lakh. Similarly, Dharampal Singh in Jhunjhunu district’s Bharu village has taken up organic farming with the help of vermicompost produced in his 19-acre field.

Increase in income

Agricultural expert Chiranji Lal Maharia, who owns a 10-hectare land in Sikar’s Kudan village, pointed out that the average income of farmers in the region, which was earlier about ₹1 lakh per hectare in a year, has touched about ₹8 lakh a year as a result of the innovative practices and hi-tech applications.

The sowing area of crops has also increased by one-and-a-half times. Besides, the separate agriculture budget started by the previous Congress regime in the State had introduced subsidies for horticulture and farm mechanisation through the purchase of agricultural equipment.

Faced with paucity of water, Mr. Maharia had to take up animal husbandry as an avocation. He also encouraged other villagers to rear sheep and goats.

“I am getting the services of a veterinarian to ensure proper growth of my animals, whose number has crossed 60,” he added. The ‘bakra mandi’ (goat market) in Sikar is one of the biggest in the State, where the annual turnover is estimated at ₹600 crore.

For this year, the Agriculture Department has announced a subsidy of up to ₹1.35 lakh for construction of farm ponds, which may be used for collecting rainwater for irrigation.

Mr. Maharia has led a group of farmers to raise the demand for bringing canal waters for irrigation in the parched fields. He said if a provision of 5,000 cusecs of canal water is made for the 50-lakh acre irrigable land in the region, it will solve the problem of water scarcity and also provide enough drinking water to the 85-lakh population in Sikar division.

The Chaudhary Kumbharam Lift Canal, built under the Indira Gandhi Canal Project, supplies 1,500 cusecs of water to some areas. If the Indira Gandhi Canal is repaired on a war footing, the inflow of water may increase to 15,000 cusecs and a portion of the additional quantity may be allocated to Sikar.

If one cusec of water is allotted per 1,000 acres, the drinking water requirement may be met and fruit and vegetable production can be taken up in 50 lakh acres through drip irrigation. The rearing of sheep and goat will provide additional support, Mr. Maharia pointed out, while calling for the appointment of a panel of experts and framing of water allocation rules. These rules may be made on the lines of allocation coming to Sanchore in southwestern Rajasthan from Sardar Sarovar Dam in neighbouring Gujarat.

The Sikar Sambhag Nahar Lao Sangharsh Samiti has also pointed out some anomalies in a memorandum of understanding signed between the Haryana and the Rajasthan governments last month for ensuring the supply of the latter’s entire share of water as per the 1994 Yamuna Water Agreement.

Sangharsh Samiti chief Bhola Ram said the Rajasthan government should make an attempt to get its full share of water from Tajewala Head and arrange for its supply to Sikar division through pipelines.

In the midst of the demands for bringing water to Shekhawati, Sikar Collector Qummer-ul-Zaman Choudhary said he is encouraging farmers to adopt new cropping patterns. “The establishment of farmer-producer organisations, linkages with cooperatives, and ensuring market accessibility will enhance their income,” Mr. Choudhary said.

New Delhi:

Scientists analysing the remote sensing data from India’s Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission have found that high energy electrons from the Earth may be forming water on the Moon.

The team led by researchers from the University of Hawai’i (UH) at Manoa in the US discovered that these electrons in Earth’s plasma sheet are contributing to weathering processes — breaking down or dissolving of rocks and minerals — on the Moon’s surface.

The research, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, found that the electrons may have aided the formation of water on the lunar body.

Knowing the concentrations and distributions of water on the Moon is critical to understanding its formation and evolution, and to providing water resources for future human exploration, the researchers said.

The new finding may also help explain the origin of the water ice previously discovered in the permanently shaded regions of the Moon, they said.

Chandrayaan-1 played a crucial role in the discovery of water molecules on the Moon. The mission, launched in 2008, was the first Indian lunar probe under the Chandrayaan programme.

Solar wind, which is composed of high energy particles such as protons, bombards the lunar surface and is thought to be one of the primary ways in which water has been formed on the Moon.

The team investigated the changes in surface weathering as the Moon passes through Earth’s magnetotail, an area that almost completely shields the lunar body from solar wind but not the Sun’s light photons.

“This provides a natural laboratory for studying the formation processes of lunar surface water,” said Shuai Li, an assistant researcher at the UH Manoa School of Ocean.

“When the Moon is outside of the magnetotail, the lunar surface is bombarded with solar wind. Inside the magnetotail, there are almost no solar wind protons and water formation was expected to drop to nearly zero,” Li said.

Li and co-authors analysed the remote sensing data that were collected by the Moon Mineralogy Mapper instrument, an imaging spectrometer, onboard India’s Chandrayaan 1 mission between 2008 and 2009.

They, specifically, assessed the changes in water formation as the Moon traversed through Earth’s magnetotail, which includes the plasma sheet.

“To my surprise, the remote sensing observations showed that the water formation in Earth’s magnetotail is almost identical to the time when the Moon was outside of the Earth’s magnetotail,” said Li.

“This indicates that, in the magnetotail, there may be additional formation processes or new sources of water not directly associated with the implantation of solar wind protons. In particular, radiation by high energy electrons exhibits similar effects as the solar wind protons,” he explaned.

This finding and the team’s previous study of rusty lunar poles indicate that the Earth is strongly tied with its Moon in many unrecognised aspects, the researchers added.

Chandrayaan 1 was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in October 2008, and operated until August 2009. The mission included an orbiter and an impactor.

India successfully landed Chandrayaan-3 mission, with a rover and a lander, near the Moon’s enigmatic south pole last month, becoming the first country to do so.