Farmers in southern districts have expressed their disappointment with the meagre allocation of ₹150 crore for Cauvery-Vaigai-Gundar river-linking project in the first State Budget presented by the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam government.

In a statement, general secretary of Southern Districts Farmers’ Association M. Arjunan said the Cauvery- Vaigai- Gundar Link Canal Project was a dream irrigation project of southern Tamil Nadu.

People had been eagerly waiting for this project for the last half a century as it was expected to provide irrigation facilities to nearly eight lakh acres of agricultural lands in seven districts, namely Karur, Tiruchi, Pudukkottai, Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram, Virudhunagar and Thoothukudi.

Stating that the allotment of mere ₹150 crore was highly inadequate, Mr. Arjunan said the allotted fund would not be sufficient for digging the canal even for five km. He recalled that the work of digging canal for 4.5 km from Mayanur in 2021 had cost ₹165 crore.

Mr. Arjunan said the project had been planned for execution in three phases. The detailed project report had been prepared for construction of the canal for 118 km from Mayanur to South Vellar in Pudukkottai district at a cost of ₹6,900 crore.

The association said in this trend of meagre allocation of fund, the project would take 50 long years for completion. Expressing disappointment with the poor allocation, the association appealed to Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay to allot at least ₹2,000 crore for the mega project.

Published - August 05, 2026 08:00 pm IST