A dry spell along the Cauvery
Farmers in India's Cauvery basin are struggling with water shortages due to a deficient monsoon and competing irrigation demands. Despite official warnings, many have planted water-intensive crops like paddy, leaving them vulnerable to the current dry spell.
Why it matters
This highlights the ongoing tension between climate-driven water scarcity and agricultural economic survival in India.
M arilingaiah, a farmer from Karnataka ’s Kuntanahalli village in Maddur taluk of Mandya district, has raised a nursery of paddy seedlings on his two-acre plot. He is waiting for water to reach his fields, which lie at the tail end of the Visvesvaraya irrigation canal system. The canal draws water from the Krishna Raja Sagara (KRS) reservoir, located across the Cauvery river near Mysuru.
Editorial | Distress and dispute: On Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and the Cauvery
Worried, he says, “If water does not flow into the fields in the next 7-10 days, I will not only have to give up hopes of sowing paddy, but also lose the ₹8,000 I have spent on raising the nursery.”
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