The Tamil Nadu government should pursue project to interlink Godavari (Inchampalli) - Cauvery (Grand Anicut), which will benefit the State to meet its water requirements, especially for agriculture, G. Viswanathan, founder and chancellor, VIT, said on Thursday.
In his presidential address at the eighth edition of Agri Expo 2026, which was organised by School of Agricultural Sciences of VIT at its campus here, he said that the interlinking of the two rivers where Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are riparian States would not only benefit farmers of Tamil Nadu but the entire agrarian community in South India. “Tamil Nadu should play a key role in interlinking of these two rivers, which is a long pending one, for the benefit of farmers in the south of Vindhyas,” he said.
The Chancellor said that the State government, on its part, should build more check dams and better water harvesting structures in the State. In other words, these proactive measures of the Tamil Nadu government could save at least 400 tmc feet of excess rainwater from the Cauvery river that flows into the sea every monsoon. The excess water from the Cauvery could be diverted to other major seasonal rivers like Palar, Cheyyar, and Pennaiyar to help farming in the region, he said.
