CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government is all set to constitute a Water Resources Conservation and River Restoration Corporation to conceive special projects, prepare detailed project reports and access funding from external agencies such as World Bank to help implement water schemes. The public works department will get help from this new state-run corporation to draft innovative schemes and projects to augment water sources.The entity will work on reclaiming tanks and rivers, desilting water bodies and dams, intralinking of rivers and river basins, and strengthening and modernising existing irrigation infrastructure. Its brief will include immediate intervention in flood mitigation and management, such as checking seawater intrusion, constructing tail-end regulators and strengthening embankments of canals. “The corporation will be a power house of engineers and consultants from outside the state,” a senior officer said.“They will prepare detailed reports of projects, seek funds and invite request for proposals and call for tenders to execute the projects by PWD,” said a senior government official. An announcement about the corporation will be made soon.Lack of in-house expertise has posed a serious challenge to the state dependent on rivers in neighbouring states for irrigation. DMK has demanded bifurcation of PWD for creation of a separate irrigation department. High-cost projects like modernisation of grand anicut canal, Cauvery Basin Modernsiation Scheme, Cauvery-Agniyar-South Vellar-Manimuthar-Vaigai-Gundar link and Mettur dam-Sarabaga-Thirumanimuthar-Ayyar are moving at snail’s pace.Water from the flooded Cauvery River during the recent southwest monsoon was let out into the Bay of Bengal due to poor storage facilities. “We are poor in irrigation despite being an agriculture state. Let the state set up an irrigation ministry and set up bodies and engage experts from wherever to provide international outlook and innovations, execute projects with utmost transparency,” said Federation of farmers associations of Cauvery delta districts general secretary Arupathy P Kalyanam.The demand for check dams is growing, so is the cry for wetland conservation. Checking sewage outfall into water bodies, generation of renewable energy in dams and tanks, enhancement of institutional capacity and organizational restructuring and engineering service reforms are few other objectives of the upcoming corporation, sources said.The state has taken the cue from Tamil Nadu Road Development Company, a special purpose vehicle, whose strength lies in formulating strategies for implementing infrastructure projects in an efficient and time bound manner. The water resources corporation will mobilize resources from external funding agencies like, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and JICA.While a special water resources development cell was set up in PWD in May with retired chief engineers to expedite the projects and augment water sources, the state also appointed a bureaucrat on Wednesday exclusively for irrigation-delta districts, as Cauvery issue continues to simmer in the region. The restoration of collapsed Mukkombu regulator and construction of check dams will be a priority for the officer.“Having won long-drawn Cauvery battle by setting up Cauvery Authority and Committee, the next step is to strengthen the infrastructure,” said an officer. The state has taken up traditional restoration of water bodies, Kudimaramath, with the help of local water users across the state.

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