17-year-old water resources atlas uploaded on dist website

Times of India: Madurai: Sunday, 23 February 2020.

The Water Resources Atlas of Madurai district, compiled nearly 17 years ago, has been uploaded on the district website recently with all information about tanks, ponds and reservoirs in the district.

The atlas has all the details of the water bodies including ayacut, bund, sluices, catchment of tank, present condition, supply channel details, encroachments and damaged condition. Tanks in all 13 blocks of Madurai district, with the name of the panchayat, ponds, area, last desilting, scheme under which it was maintained, are all available on the site. This atlas was reportedly compiled during the period of former Madurai district collector B Chandra Mohan, between 2003- 2004. It is estimated that there are about 2,800 irrigation tanks and about 3,000 to 4,000 village water bodies. After independence and with the emergence of local bodies, the government of Tamil Nadu entrusted the management of minor irrigation tanks with less than 40 hectares capacity to the respective panchayat unions and the bigger tanks to the PWD, said the then collector B Chandra Mohan’s foreword in the atlas. These were identified with the help of land records, which feature names of the tanks and the area of their existence.

It had been compiled over a period of 8-10 months by the officials from the various departments including revenue, rural development, survey, PWD-water resources organization and agricultural engineering. Each water body has been given a unique alphanumeric code. This code details the characteristics of each water body. With more than 7,000 pages, this atlas can be obtained from the Madurai district website https://madurai.nic.in/water-bodies-in-madurai-district/. Right to Information (RTI) activist, K Hakkim said that as the district administration has taken this initiative to put up such elaborate details of the water bodies online, people like him need not seek details of water bodies of Madurai district using the RTI. Madurai district collector T G Vinay said that he had got atlas uploaded on the district website as it will serve as a source of info.