The Lower Bhavani Farmers Association claimed that the yagam conducted by Public Works Department at Bhavanisagar dam seeking divine intervention to bring rain was primarily a tactic to divert the attention of the people from the ineffective water management practices that took place in the dam this year. The authorities in the district had let out a large amount of water to the old ayacuts of Bhavani river violating the government orders and without considering the requirements of the farmers in LBP ayacut, association president S. Nallasamy told media persons on Monday. “A number of textile processing mills, tannery units and paper mills are drawing water from the Bhavani river. The department accorded priority to these units and released water from the dam, while it chose to ignore over two lakh acres of land in LBP ayacut. The future of the farming community in the ayacut looks bleak as the dam has hit the dead storage level,” he said. Farmers in Lower Bhavani Project (LBP) contributed a sum of Rs. 10.35 crore for the construction of the dam. But none of members of the association and Command Area Development Authority, which represent a majority of the farmers in the ayacut, were invited for the yagam, he claimed. “We do not find fault with the officials for performing the yagam. But the primary purpose of conducting the yagam is to cover up the ineffective water management practices that led to the poor storage in the dam. The authorities were trying to establish that the poor storage in the dam was the result of a natural phenomenon and not a human error,” Mr. Nallasamy said. The department, he said, should stop implementing ineffective water management practices at the dam and keep it closed till the water position improved. The livelihood of thousands of farmers in Erode, Tirupur and Karur districts depended on the water from the dam, he said.