The State government on Thursday told the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court about the development of Tamil Nadu Water Resources Information and Management System (TNWRIMS), a web portal with Decision Support System which was completed by Water Resources Department and launched by the Chief Minister on July 3.
The court was hearing a contempt petition filed by advocate R. Manibharathi of Madurai who complained that the earlier court order directing the State to open a dedicated website containing an exhaustive list of all waterbodies in Tamil Nadu with their details had not been complied with.
In a status report, Secretary of the WRD J. Jayakanthan submitted that the tank and the reservoir modules in the TNWRIMS contained information about 92,068 tanks and 127 reservoirs in both Geographical Information System (GIS) and Management Information System (MIS) dashboards.
The portal was now being used by all line departments for their water resources-related activities with limited login facilities. The Differential Global Positioning System-surveyed waterbodies’ details would be uploaded in a phased manner as and when shared by the Director, Department of Survey and Settlement (DOSS).
Director of Survey and Settlement Deepak Jacob, in a status report, submitted that with the current number of field surveyors it would require approximately three years to complete the task of measuring, validating and uploading details to the website. However, with additional staff deployment the work might be completed in two years, for which efforts were being made by the department.
The Tamil Nadu e-governance Agency (TNeGA) technical staff uploaded waterbody data making it accessible for public viewing, it was submitted.
In 2024, a Division Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and B. Pugalendhi had issued a series of directions to the State. It had directed the State to open a dedicated website containing an exhaustive list of all waterbodies in Tamil Nadu
The court had observed that the website should contain relevant details pertaining to waterbodies (including tanks, lakes, rivers and kanmois), survey numbers, physical locations, details of villages, taluks and districts and extent (both original and present). The court had directed that the website meant for viewing by all should be opened in six months.
Since the court direction was not complied with, the present contempt petition was filed. The court posted the matter to December 18 for reporting further progress made.
Published – October 23, 2025 08:42 pm IST
