Mettur dam achieves new storage record

Tiruchirapalli, Aug 2 (UNI) The Stanley reservoir at Mettur across river Cauvery has created a new record of ''maintaining more than 100 ft storage for a year continously,'' surpassing all its previous records.

A senior official of the public works department told UNI today that the reservoir had maintained more than 100 feet mark for 366 days till this morning. It was for the first time that the record was created in the 72-year-old history of the Mettur dam, the lifeline of Cauvery delta district farmers.

Since the commissioning of the dam in the year 1934, the reservoir had surplus water for 34 years, he said adding that last year, the dam had created a ''new record'' of discharginbg surplus water continuously for 81 days, surpassing its previous record of letting out surplus water continuously for 79 days in the year 1964.

Similarly, it had registered another record in 2005 when the dam had surplus water four times in a single year, he informed.

Started functioning on August 21, 1934 in Salem district, the reservoir was named after Sir Fradarick Stanley, the then Governor General of Madras. Though the dam was constructed to store 120 ft water, it has the capacity to store water up to 124 ft, the maximum storage level.

The water level in the dam stood at 109,550 feet this morning, against the full capacity of 120 ft. The inflow was 15,569 cusecs and the outflow was 20,000 cusecs.

From Grand Anaicut in Thanjavur district, about 8,035 cusecs of water was let out into river Cauvery, 5,339 cusecs into Vennar, 3,004 cusecs into Grand Anaicut canal and 1,501 cusecs into Coleroon river for irrigation needs, PWD sources said.

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