District|Tamil Nadu|Amaravathi sub-basin
Karur district
84% of the irrigated farmland is watered from wells (Season and Crop Report 2024-25), 4 of 7 taluks already draw more groundwater than recharges and 3 more are close to that line, and 90.8% of households are recorded with a tap, with the gap concentrated in Krishnarayapuram and Kadavur.
Read as of 2026-09-06, from 157 Gram Panchayats in 8 blocks, 157 of them with a brief that cleared the evidence floor.
47,421 ha net irrigated: canals 15.8%, tanks 0%, tube and bore wells 31.2%, open wells 53%, other sources 0%.
District stage of extraction 103.1%, assessed over-exploited. Assessed per revenue taluk, not per block or Panchayat.
1,90,977 connections against 2,10,351 households in 157 Panchayats.
Type a name, a block or an LGD code; all 157 are listed. Press Enter to open the first match, or browse by block further down.
What the district runs on
Irrigation from the district tables of the Season and Crop Report 2024-25, with the Census 2011 village pattern beneath it as the block-level baseline; drinking water from the sources JJM records today. A Panchayat without a measure lowers that measure’s denominator rather than counting as a zero.
- Canals15.8%(7,479 ha)
- Tanks0.0%(0 ha)
- Tube and bore wells31.2%(14,805 ha)
- Open wells53.0%(25,137 ha)
- Other sources0.0%(0 ha)
Season and Crop Report 2024-25, Table III-B, the district total: gross 52,017 ha with 4,596 ha irrigated more than once (intensity 1.1).
- Canals21.4%(8,557 ha)
- Wells78.6%(31,431 ha)
- Tanks0.0%(0 ha)
- Other sources0.0%(0 ha)
Census 2011 village tables, covering 124 of 157 Panchayats with a land record. Kept beneath the current reading because it is the only served source with a block gradient.
- Ground Water95.6%(4,428)
- Surface Water4.4%(202)
- Rain Water0.0%(2)
JJM, read 2026-09-06. Commonest source types: Deep Tubewell (3,905), Infiltration well (407), River (201), Open Well (93).
95.6% of the 4,632 drinking-water sources JJM records here draw on groundwater (3,905 of them deep tubewells), against 202 on surface water.
The Mettur dependence
Canal water reaches 21.4% of irrigated farmland, concentrated in Kulithalai, Karur and K.Paramathi, so the Mettur release decides the season there and the aquifer decides it everywhere else.
Groundwater by taluk
IN-GRES assesses revenue taluks, not blocks or Panchayats. These are the units the district is actually assessed in, and the headroom reading is written from them.
IN-GRES 2024-2025 puts total groundwater availability across the 7 taluks at 29,199 ham a year, 13,487 ham of it rainfall recharge, with 6,075 ham (20.8%) left for future use. Of the 7 taluks, 4 over-exploited and 3 critical. The district as a whole is assessed over-exploited at 103.1% of extraction. Headroom sits mostly in Kulithalai (1,581 ham) and is thinnest in Kadavur (275 ham).
| Taluk | Stage of extraction | Category | Rainfall recharge (ham) | Total availability (ham) | Left for future use (ham) | Rainfall (mm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kadavur | 117.9% | over-exploited | 2,198 | 3,857 | 275 | 703 |
| Karur | 115.9% | over-exploited | 1,459 | 2,443 | 397 | 617 |
| Manmangalam | 109.0% | over-exploited | 962 | 3,037 | 1,145 | 627 |
| Pugalur | 108.5% | over-exploited | 1,838 | 4,022 | 835 | 560 |
| Krishnarayapuram | 99.1% | critical | 1,961 | 4,317 | 1,013 | 724 |
| Aravakurichi | 97.2% | critical | 3,171 | 4,866 | 829 | 642 |
| Kulithalai | 90.9% | critical | 1,899 | 6,657 | 1,581 | 636 |
IN-GRES 2024-2025. The stage of extraction is annual draft as a share of total availability; above 100 percent, more is drawn each year than the taluk is assessed to have. Rainfall recharge is one component of that availability. The year is the hydrological-year label, not an edition date. 157 of 157 Panchayats inherit their containing taluk's category by spatial intersection, as containing-area context rather than a measurement of the place; 0 are deferred rather than guessed.
Blocks compared
The same measures per block. Where a district average hides a gradient, this is where it shows, and the findings are written before the table rather than left for the reader to find.
Canal share runs from 61.0% in Kulithalai to 0.0% in Aravakurichi and Kadavur; wells fill the difference, 100.0% of irrigated farmland at the bottom of the gradient against 39.0% at the top.
The tap gap is mostly on the blocks without canal water (Kadavur (81.1% of households, 0.0% canal) and Thogamalai (88.0% of households, 5.8% canal)); Krishnarayapuram (79.6% of households, 20.8% canal), Thanthoni (88.0% of households, 10.4% canal) and Kulithalai (98.7% of households, 61.0% canal) are the exception, with canal water and a gap. Each of these blocks sits mostly in a taluk assessed over-exploited or critical, so closing the gap draws on a source already in deficit.
2 of 8 blocks report exactly 100.0% of households with a tap. A figure that exact across 2,10,351 households is a reporting convention, connections entered equal to households, and is read here as reported complete rather than measured.
| Drinking water, JJM | Farmland irrigation, Census 2011 | Groundwater, IN-GRES | Water bodies, TNGIS | Water-quality testing, JJM | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block | Panchayats | Households with a tap | Irrigated area | from canals | from wells | from tanks | Taluk category, projected | Mapped | Untested 90+ d | Longest since tested |
| Aravakurichi | 20 | 100.0% | 5,126 ha | 0.0% | 99.7% | 0.3% | critical(20 of 20) | 78 | 1 | 107 d |
| K.Paramathi | 30 | 100.0% | 5,076 ha | 30.4% | 69.6% | 0.0% | over-exploited(30 of 30) | 266 | 0 | 30 d |
| Kadavur | 20 | 81.1% | 6,852 ha | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% | over-exploited(20 of 20) | 181 | 0 | 32 d |
| Karur | 14 | 99.6% | 3,979 ha | 38.2% | 61.8% | 0.0% | over-exploited(14 of 14) | 52 | 0 | 31 d |
| Krishnarayapuram | 23 | 79.6% | 7,442 ha | 20.8% | 79.2% | 0.0% | critical(23 of 23) | 177 | 0 | 29 d |
| Kulithalai | 13 | 98.7% | 5,770 ha | 61.0% | 39.0% | 0.0% | critical(13 of 13) | 42 | 0 | 30 d |
| Thanthoni | 17 | 88.0% | 1,956 ha | 10.4% | 89.4% | 0.2% | over-exploited(17 of 17) | 86 | 0 | 32 d |
| Thogamalai | 20 | 88.0% | 3,788 ha | 5.8% | 94.2% | 0.0% | critical(20 of 20) | 363 | 0 | 29 d |
Canal, well and tank figures are shares of the irrigated farmland beside them, not of households and not of drinking water. They come from Census 2011 (Census 2011 release; village reference year 2009) and cover only the 124 Panchayats with a Census land record, so a block with few such records shows a share of a small area. Tap and testing figures are JJM and current at the read date. The talukcategory is the one most of the block’s Panchayats inherit by projection, since blocks and revenue taluks do not nest. Untested counts Panchayats whose most recent water-quality sample is more than 90 days before 2026-09-06; ninety days is the Atlas’s own threshold for calling a series stale, not a statutory testing interval.
Floods and scarcity
Two readings the directory families cannot carry: what the state's own disaster plan says about flood exposure here, and - where the state publishes one - the week's tanker register. Both are the state's documents, quoted and dated, not the Atlas's assessment.
Karur is not among the fourteen coastal districts the state disaster plan rates highly vulnerable; the plan does not classify inland flood exposure district by district, so that is the extent of what it states here, not a rating of safety.
“The 14 coastal Districts, viz., Chennai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Cuddalore, Villupuram, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Myladuthirai, Pudukottai, Ramanathapuram, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Kanniyakumari are highly vulnerable and affected frequently by the trough and depression formed in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean during South-West and North-East monsoon periods.”
Water bodies
The TNGIS all-water-bodies register, joined to each Panchayat by the register's own LGD code rather than by a name match.
In 142 Panchayats; 15 have none in the register. Registered by AED, DOSS, NRSC, TNRD, WRD. Waterspread is the mapped extent, not storage: it says nothing about whether these hold water through the year or when any one of them was last surveyed. Read 2026-09-06.
District Environment Plan
District Collector, Karur, and District Environmental Engineer, Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, Karur (the two signatories on the last page); published on the Karur district website under the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board, Karur department listing prepared the plan on the CPCB model under the NGT's 2019 order. What it states about water is transcribed below, each figure with the page it sits on; nothing here is computed from it.
Dated 2019-11-26, 33 pages. Read the plan at MPCB (PDF). The plan prints no date of its own; its text runs up to the 8.8.2019 submission of the state water-bodies action plan to CPCB and carries time targets to 31.12.2019, pdfinfo shows no CreationDate and a ModDate of 26 November 2019, and the file sits under a November 2019 upload path (uploads/2019/11/2019112659.pdf) on the listing page, which was confirmed to link it on 2026-09-06.
Transcription checked against the document on 2026-09-06.
| Figure | As stated | Where |
|---|---|---|
Length of the Cauvery in Karur district The river enters at Kombupalayam village and exits at Sirugamani village; the Noyyal and the Amaravathi join it in this stretch, which CPCB lists under priority I. | 56.16 km | p. 16 (PDF p. 17) |
Polluted river stretches CPCB identified in Tamil Nadu Statewide, printed in words: Sarabanga, Vasista, Thirumanimutharu and Cauvery under priority I (BOD above 30 mg/l), Bhavani under priority IV, Thamirabarani under priority V. | 6 stretches | p. 16 (PDF p. 17) |
Parameters analysed round the clock at the continuous water quality monitoring station TNPCB's station is at the Tamilnadu Newsprint and Papers Limited pumping station on the Cauvery; GEMS and MINARS samples are also collected monthly at Thirumukkudalur and Kattalai. | 14 parameters | p. 17 (PDF p. 18) |
Places along the Cauvery where encroachments were identified Agricultural encroachments in Manmangalam Taluk (Nanjaipugalur village); the plan says notices were issued. | 65 places | p. 19 (PDF p. 20) |
Cost of the faecal sludge treatment plant planned by Karur Municipality Listed under sewage management for the Cauvery stretch with a time target of 31.12.2019; the quote is the Karur Municipality column's fragment of an interleaved table line. | 2.85 Rs crore | p. 19 (PDF p. 20) |
Red-category industries with TNPCB consent From the consent table; the plan says all units generating wastewater have an ETP. | 300 industries | p. 20 (PDF p. 21) |
Orange-category industries with TNPCB consent From the consent table. | 493 industries | p. 20 (PDF p. 21) |
Green-category industries with TNPCB consent From the consent table. | 122 industries | p. 20 (PDF p. 21) |
Industries with TNPCB consent, all categories Red 300, orange 493, green 122; home textiles, bus-body building, quarries, stone crushers and mosquito-net making are named as the main types. | 915 industries | p. 20 (PDF p. 21) |
Textile dyeing and bleaching units functioning in Karur Printed in words; the plan says these units have zero-liquid-discharge plants and recycle their effluent completely. | 68 units | p. 20 (PDF p. 21) |
Sewage treatment plants required for the local bodies Item 2 of the industrial-pollution action table, printed over two lines ('No of STPs required for' / 'the local bodies – 2.'). | 2 STPs | p. 22 (PDF p. 23) |
Sewage treatment plants provided in the local bodies Item 3 of the same table ('No of STPs provided in' / 'the local bodies - 2.'); the treated-sewage chapter names only Karur Municipality's STP. | 2 STPs | p. 22 (PDF p. 23) |
Capacity of Karur Municipality's sewage treatment plant Treated effluent goes to adjacent irrigation canals; the plan says the whole municipality is not yet covered by the underground drainage scheme. | 15 MLD | p. 23 (PDF p. 24) |
Sewage generated in Tamil Nadu Statewide, stated as approximate, against 54 STPs of 1400 MLD; the plan prints no district sewage-generation figure. | 5,600 MLD | p. 23 (PDF p. 24) |
Water bodies available in Tamil Nadu Statewide total across six owning departments, with 5607 rejuvenated in the past five years and 1806 under rejuvenation; the plan prints no district count. | 90,048 water bodies | p. 26 (PDF p. 27) |
Action points the plan sets for water: sewage management: 1) fstp, rs.2.85 crores, time target 31.12.2019; 2) swt, in-situ treatment, time target 31.12.2019; 3) lwtf, rs.13.0 lakhs, time target 31.10.2019.; e-flow & irrigation practices: supplying water to the crops by turn system on a rotational basis; awareness to farmers, with agriculture and horticulture departments, on drip and sprinkler irrigation.; flood plain zone: after identification and demarcation of fpz, action will be taken up to evict encroachments; agricultural encroachments found along the cauvery in 65 places in manmangalam taluk.; to ensure all the tnpcb consented units have provided etp; functional status of etps/stps; monitoring of treated effluent qualities of etps/stps.; karur municipality shall cover all the entire municipality area under ugds scheme; sewage received in stp shall be treated to the discharge standards.; collection of catchment and lead channel pollution data, sewage disposal contamination data, industrial effluent data and solid, plastic, e-, hazardous and c&d waste data for all water bodies.; declaring the designated best use of water bodies and ascertain the quality of water as per the standard.; deweeding, desilting, protection of drainage basin, channels, stabilization of earthen bunds and preparing cost estimation.; identification of river stretches where there are chances for illegal sand mining; frequent surprise checks there by the taluk level task force, reporting to the district level task force fortnightly.; to carry out air quality monitoring, water quality monitoring (ground water) & compost quality in and around processing facilities & dumpsites as per schedule i & ii of swm rules, 2016.. Two things to know when reading the PDF: The plan cites NGT O.A. No. 710-713/2017 dated 15.07.2019 (the District Committee order), not O.A. 360 of 2018 which the Maharashtra plans cite. The cover carries no page number; from the index onward the printed footer number is one less than the PDF page (index = printed page 1), so printedPage = pdfPage - 1 for every figure. The plan prints no date of its own; documentDate is the PDF ModDate (pdfinfo shows no CreationDate). The plan prints no district sewage-generation figure and no district water-body count; the only sewage total (5600 MLD) and the only water-bodies table (90,048) are statewide. The industrial-pollution action table (printed page 22) says 2 STPs are required and 2 provided in the local bodies, while the treated-sewage chapter (printed page 23) says only Karur Municipality of the two municipalities has an STP (15 MLD); both are recorded as printed. The treated-sewage chapter's sentence 'The entire municipality is not covered under the UGDS S' breaks off mid-word on printed page 23. The polluted-river-stretches action table (printed page 19) is a five-column layout; pdftotext interleaves columns on a line, so the FSTP quote is that column's fragment of its line. The table prints 'Priority - I' against the Cauvery stretch (its CPCB class); the action points from that table carry it as their priority since no separate action priority is printed. Bulleted lines carry a private-use bullet glyph in the text extraction; quotes start after it. The last page (printed page 32) is scanned: the signature block and parts of the sand-mining table are OCR garble ('mmrng itransporting ldamage').
Polluted river stretches
What CPCB's October 2025 (updated version) report lists for the district. Priority is CPCB's own BOD band on the 2022 and 2023 maximum, I the worst; station BOD for 2024 is the report's follow-up annexure. Each row says how it was joined to the district: a place CPCB prints, or the river's course.
Source: CPCB, Polluted River Stretches for Restoration of Water Quality, October 2025 (updated version) (cpcb.gov.in). The report is cited by annexure serial and PDF page; it is not mirrored here.
| River | Stretch or location, as CPCB prints it | Priority | Max BOD 2022 and 2023 (mg/L) | Stations, BOD 2024 | Since 2018 | Joined to this district by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cauvery | RIVER CAUVERY AT ERODE NEAR VIRAPALAYAM TO PITCHAVARAM (Annexure III A, no. 122, PDF p. 91) | Priority II | 24 | 7, BOD 2.4 to 9 | improved from Priority I in 2018 | the river's course, as read by the maintainer: the Cauvery's right bank between Erode and Tiruchirappalli runs along Karur (maintainer's reading of the course; CPCB names no place in Karur) |
The 2022 edition listed the Amaravathi in Tamil Nadu at Priority V; the October 2025 edition lists no Amaravathi stretch.
Find a Gram Panchayat
Every one of the 157 LGD-coded Gram Panchayats is listed. A place shows a water profile only where its evidence cleared the floor (identity, population and drinking-water service established); the rest are directory records, kept so they can be found and reviewed.
157 Gram Panchayats. 157 water profile.
| Adhanur | Kadavur | 224673 | Water profile |
| Alamarathupatti | Aravakurichi | 224623 | Water profile |
| Alathur | Thogamalai | 224760 | Water profile |
| Ammapatti | Aravakurichi | 224624 | Water profile |
| Andankoil east | Thanthoni | 224743 | Water profile |
| Andankoil west | Thanthoni | 224744 | Water profile |
| Anjur | K.Paramathi | 224643 | Water profile |
| Appipalayam | Thanthoni | 224745 | Water profile |
| Archampatti | Thogamalai | 224761 | Water profile |
| Ariyur | K.Paramathi | 224645 | Water profile |
| Athipalayam | K.Paramathi | 224646 | Water profile |
| Authur poolampalayam | Karur | 224693 | Water profile |
| Balarajapuram | Krishnarayapuram | 224707 | Water profile |
| Chinnadharapuram | K.Paramathi | 224647 | Water profile |
| Chinnaiyampalayam | Thogamalai | 224762 | Water profile |
| Chinthalavadi | Krishnarayapuram | 224708 | Water profile |
| Devarmalai | Kadavur | 224674 | Water profile |
| Elavanoor | K.Paramathi | 224648 | Water profile |
| Emoor | Thanthoni | 224746 | Water profile |
| Erumarpatty | Aravakurichi | 224625 | Water profile |
| Esanatham | Aravakurichi | 224626 | Water profile |
| Gudalur | Thogamalai | 224763 | Water profile |
| Gudalur East | K.Paramathi | 224649 | Water profile |
| Gudalur West | K.Paramathi | 224650 | Water profile |
| Hiranyamangalam | Kulithalai | 224730 | Water profile |
| Inanganur | Aravakurichi | 224627 | Water profile |
| Inungur | Kulithalai | 224731 | Water profile |
| Jegadabi | Thanthoni | 224747 | Water profile |
| K.Paramathi | K.Paramathi | 224651 | Water profile |
| K.Pitchampatti | Thanthoni | 224748 | Water profile |
| Kadavur | Kadavur | 224675 | Water profile |
| Kakkavadi | Thanthoni | 224749 | Water profile |
| Kalayapatti | Kadavur | 224676 | Water profile |
| Kalladai | Thogamalai | 224764 | Water profile |
| Kallai | Thogamalai | 224765 | Water profile |
| Kallappalli | Krishnarayapuram | 224709 | Water profile |
| Kalugur | Thogamalai | 224766 | Water profile |
| Kammanallur | Krishnarayapuram | 224710 | Water profile |
| Karudayampalayam | K.Paramathi | 224652 | Water profile |
| Karuppampalayam | Thanthoni | 224750 | Water profile |
The district on a map
Every Panchayat with a mapped boundary is plotted from the centre of its own TNGIS polygon, not from a hand-entered coordinate. The marker is the Panchayat, not a settlement.
157 of 157 Panchayats have a mapped boundary. The polygons themselves are withheld pending the TNGIS licence reply.
How current these figures are
Not everything on this page is from the same year, and the gap is large. What each figure describes is listed separately from when the Atlas last read it, straight from each artifact's own record.
| Figures | Describes | Last read | Produced | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Panchayat list and codes | 2021-03-11 (PDF CreationDate) | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | TNRD LGD directory, cross-checked against the current TNRD master on the retrieval date. |
| Drinking-water service, sources, testing | current at 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | Jal Jeevan Mission citizen corner: habitations, tap connections, sources, sample rows. |
| Irrigation by source, district | Season and Crop Report 2024-25 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | DES Season and Crop Report Table III-B: net area irrigated per source at district grain. The block gradient below stays Census 2011 until a taluk-grain source is wired. |
| Land, irrigation and seasonal sources | Census 2011 release; village reference year 2009 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | Census 2011 village tables, the newest village-level irrigation enumeration served here. The Season and Crop Report district mix above is the current reading; the 2017-18 Minor Irrigation Census (wells and tanks by village) is not wired yet. |
| Groundwater assessment | 2024-2025 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | IN-GRES, assessed per revenue taluk. The year is the hydrological-year label. |
| Groundwater projected to Panchayats | 2024-2025 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | Each Panchayat inherits its containing taluk's category by spatial intersection. |
| Rainfall | 2026-08-07 to 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | Open-Meteo reanalysis at a grid point inside each Panchayat, not a gauge. |
| Water bodies | as mapped; the register carries no survey date | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | TNGIS all-water-bodies register, counts and areas only. |
| Panchayat briefs | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | Generated from the families above; a place without identity, population and service stays directory-only. |
| District Environment Plan | 2019 plan, dated 2019-11-26 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-06 | Transcribed from the published PDF with the page each figure sits on; nothing computed from it. |
| Flood classification | Tamil Nadu State Disaster Management Plan 2023, 2023-03-18 | 2026-09-02 | 2026-09-02 | The plan's own flood classification, quoted with its page; the Atlas classifies nothing itself. A revised plan replaces this line wholesale. |
The land, irrigation and seasonal-source figures are the oldest thing here by a wide margin. India’s 2021 census did not take place, so Census 2011 remains the most recent village-level enumeration and there is no newer source of the same granularity to replace it with. Those figures are kept under capabilities named historical, and the current-crop capability is left empty rather than answered with a 2009 number.