We recently took a short trip to Trichy, in Southern Tamil Nadu, visiting a wide variety of places. One of the places that we visited was the Kallanai Dam, built 2,000 years ago by the Chola King, Karikal Valavan. The idea behind the dam was to divert water to the delta area in order to facilitate agriculture and water access to the villagers there. As a distributional dam for the Kaveri River, it is extremely vital to those who live nearby, and is a primary source of recreation. During our visit, I observed people washing their clothes, swimming, and playing on the rides built near the water. We walked across the length of the dam, enjoying the beautiful scenery of the delta below and listening to the laughter from those enjoying relief from a hot and humid day.
The Kaveri, spelled Cauvery in some texts, originates in the Western Ghats in the state of Karnataka. The river flows southeast through southern India, across the Deccan Plateau. Emptying into the Bay of Bengal, the river flows southeast for 475 miles, with the river basin covering an area of 27,700 square miles. Primary uses of the river include irrigation, household consumption, and electricity generation. According to the most recent Five-year Plan in India, 60% of water from the Kaveri River is used for irrigation purposes. The river is recharged during the monsoon season, which is at its peak in Tamil Nadu during the month of November. As one of five major rivers in India, the Kaveri holds economic, social, and religious importance to the local citizens.
There is a legend for the creation of the Kaveri River in Hinduism, beginning with the marriage of Shiva and Parvati. Celebrating by holding a gathering at Mount Kailash in the Himalayas, the weight of the guests created a small dip and changed the equilibrium of the area. In order to fix this problem, Shiva asked the great sage, Agastya, to travel south. Because Agastya was saddened that he was going to miss the grand celebration, Shiva took pity on him and filled Agastya’s vessel, always carried by sages, with the river water, taken from his hair. While Agastya was traveling, now with a filled vessel in his possession, there was also a drought happening in the south. The elephant-headed god, Ganesh, heard about the drought and changed his form into a crow, flying by and toppling the vessel that Agastya was carrying on his head. Thus the Kaveri River was released and created in southern India. There are a plethora of versions about this legend, but this is the one that was told while visiting the dam.
The Kallanai Dam, also known as the Grand Anicut, is made of stone, measuring 1,079 feet long and 66 feet wide. It spans the main stream of the Kaveri River and its purpose is to divert water to the fertile regions of the Tanjavur Delta, irrigating agricultural lands. The Kallanai Dam, “kall” meaning stone and “anai” meaning bund, has led to the irrigation of 1,000,000 acres of land in the Delta region. Dams also lead to increase in recreational activity, such as swimming, for those living near the river. The area is now more profitable due to increase in arable land and more beneficial for all who live in close proximity to the Kallanai Dam.
India is notorious for its water distribution problems, as there is extreme flooding in some areas, such as Maharashtra, during the monsoon season, but there are also extreme droughts in dry states such as Rajasthan. The main problem is how to distribute this water so that the overflow could be received by those who most need water in arid areas. If such excess could be diverted and sent elsewhere, many problems could be solved. However, when dealing with rivers that cross several states, such as the Kaveri River, politics get involved and issues become increasingly more complicated.
Known as inter-basin water transfer, the sharing of waters from an extremely wet region to a dry region has great potential to fix major issues. However, this grand solution often creates new problems, as Karnataka and its neighboring state, Tamil Nadu, have been locked in a struggle for equitable access to the waters of the Kaveri River for many decades now, with little potential for a solution that would please all parties. The main problem is that there is no central, governing body that can dictate what actions the states must take. Also, after independence, the states were created based on linguistic boundaries, not topographical features or river basin boundaries. Thus the Kaveri River crosses multiple states, all of whom desire the right to create dams such as the Kallanai, which divert water into their specific regions, often depriving those downstream of their share of the flow. Issues such as these also plague many other countries, including those who share rivers across national boundaries, causing even greater problems.
Regardless, there is little dispute that the dam has proved highly beneficial, both economically and socially, for all those who live nearby.
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