District Monitoring Officer S. Suresh Kumar and District Collector K. J. Praveen Kumar reviewing the work at a water source in Nagapattinam on Sunday.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Nagapattinam District Monitoring Officer S. Suresh Kumar inspected various ongoing water resource and desilting works on Sunday.Mr. Suresh Kumar, accompanied by Collector K. J. Praveen Kumar, reviewed the progress, functioning, and quality of canal and drain works being carried out across the district.Under the Water Resources Department’s special desilting scheme, 57 works covering 399.40 km have been sanctioned in the district at a cost of ₹6.07 crore. Officials said all the works under the scheme had been completed.Nagapattinam district has 15 rivers, of which six come under the Cauvery River Basin Division, Thanjavur, and nine under the Vennaru River Basin Division, Tiruvarur. These rivers feed 232 B-division channels extending 850.61 km and 1,115 A-division channels covering 1,243.90 km, providing irrigation and drainage facilities to agricultural lands.Desilting is being carried out using machinery in channels not covered under the special scheme, based on priority and requests from farmers. So far, around 22 km of channels have been desilted.Meanwhile, the Rural Development Department is carrying out desilting work in 170 channels at a cost of about ₹4.61 crore, involving 2.70 lakh persondays of labour. Works are under way in 46 ponds at a cost of ₹1.43 crore, involving 41,096 persondays of labour. In addition, 23 new ponds are being excavated at a cost of ₹99.62 lakh.A total of 239 water resource development works are being undertaken through the department at an estimated cost of around ₹7.04 crore, Mr. Suresh Kumar added. Published - August 30, 2026 08:37 pm IST
