Farmers in Coimbatore and Tiruppur districts are unhappy with what they consider as “meagre” allocation of ₹1.5 crore out of ₹120 crore sanctioned in the 2025-26 Budget for desilting rivers, canals and drains in Coimbatore region.
There is no sign of any work carried out under the project that envisages removal of silt from the water bodies to the designed bed level, removal of shoals and thorny bushes in canals/ channels, branch canals, drains and supply canals, according to farmers dependent on the irrigation canals for irrigation.
Representatives of farmers’ associations said they look for transparency in the execution of the desilting works. “Nothing is known as yet about the ₹10 crore announced recently by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on carrying out repair works along the 124-km long PAP main canal and the branch canals,” a functionary of a Water Users’ Association said.
According to WRD sources, orders are awaited following the CM’s announcement. In any case, scope for carrying out any desilting works in the PAP canal system is bleak until January 2026 as the third-round wetting is currently in progress, and two more rounds have to be completed, the officials added.
The Palar sub-basins of Parambikulam Aliyar Basin caters to 1,53,965 hectares. The government documents acknowledge that conveyance efficiency has reduced to a certain extent in supplying equitable and assured quantum of water, especially in the tail-end reaches.
Farmers with lesser extent of land holdings who entirely depend on canal water for irrigating their crops are affected the most, it is learnt. Out of the 1.1 lakh farmers in the PAP canal’s ayacut, over 28,600 farmers have been categorised under ‘Marginal’ (below one hectare) category and over 38,300 farmers under ‘Small’ (one to two hectares) categories.
Published – October 22, 2025 08:18 pm IST
