District|Tamil Nadu
Dindigul district
89% of the irrigated farmland is watered from wells (Season and Crop Report 2024-25), 7 of 10 taluks already draw more groundwater than recharges, and 92.2% of households are recorded with a tap, with the gap concentrated in Natham and Kodaikanal.
Read as of 2026-09-06, from 306 Gram Panchayats in 14 blocks, 301 of them with a brief that cleared the evidence floor.
1,04,560 ha net irrigated: canals 4.5%, tanks 5.6%, tube and bore wells 15.9%, open wells 72.7%, other sources 1.2%. Supplementary wells (694 ha net) supplement other sources and are not additive.
District stage of extraction 117.5%, assessed over-exploited. Assessed per revenue taluk, not per block or Panchayat.
4,56,059 connections against 4,94,548 households in 301 Panchayats.
Type a name, a block or an LGD code; all 306 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.
- Canals4.5%(4,743 ha)
- Tanks5.6%(5,848 ha)
- Tube and bore wells15.9%(16,649 ha)
- Open wells72.7%(76,020 ha)
- Other sources1.2%(1,300 ha)
Season and Crop Report 2024-25, Table III-B, the district total: gross 1,07,729 ha with 3,169 ha irrigated more than once (intensity 1.03). The report's supplementary-wells column ('by all other types of wells') records 694 ha net for this district in 2024-25; it waters land already counted under another source and is not added to the net total.
- Canals10.1%(8,622 ha)
- Wells78.0%(66,586 ha)
- Tanks10.4%(8,878 ha)
- Other sources1.5%(1,281 ha)
Census 2011 village tables, covering 238 of 306 Panchayats with a land record. Kept beneath the current reading because it is the only served source with a block gradient.
- Ground Water98.2%(11,688)
- Surface Water1.4%(167)
- Others0.3%(32)
- Rain Water0.1%(17)
JJM, read 2026-09-06. Commonest source types: Deep Tubewell (10,743), Open Well (540), Infiltration well (375), River (120).
98.2% of the 11,904 drinking-water sources JJM records here draw on groundwater (10,743 of them deep tubewells), against 167 on surface water.
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 10 taluks at 53,635 ham a year, 25,198 ham of it rainfall recharge, with 9,114 ham (17%) left for future use. Of the 10 taluks, 7 over-exploited, 2 semi-critical and 1 safe. The district as a whole is assessed over-exploited at 117.5% of extraction. Headroom sits mostly in Kodaikanal (2,784 ham) and is thinnest in Athoor (155 ham).
| Taluk | Stage of extraction | Category | Rainfall recharge (ham) | Total availability (ham) | Left for future use (ham) | Rainfall (mm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gujiliamparai | 158.7% | over-exploited | 1,583 | 3,754 | 209 | 690 |
| Vedasandur | 147.6% | over-exploited | 2,531 | 6,113 | 888 | 804 |
| Oddenchatram | 142.5% | over-exploited | 3,237 | 7,596 | 852 | 712 |
| Nilakottai | 139.8% | over-exploited | 2,140 | 6,189 | 860 | 825 |
| Dindigul West | 125.7% | over-exploited | 3,195 | 5,214 | 197 | 935 |
| Athoor | 123.4% | over-exploited | 1,623 | 3,900 | 155 | 986 |
| Dindigul East | 119.2% | over-exploited | 3,044 | 5,768 | 704 | 904 |
| Palani | 88.5% | semi-critical | 2,792 | 8,360 | 1,800 | 689 |
| Natham | 78.8% | semi-critical | 2,040 | 3,615 | 664 | 983 |
| Kodaikanal | 1.6% | safe | 3,012 | 3,125 | 2,784 | 1223 |
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. 306 of 306 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 42.1% in Kodaikanal to 0.0% in Guziliamparai, Oddanchatram and Vadamadurai; wells fill the difference, 93.7% of irrigated farmland at the bottom of the gradient against 8.4% at the top.
The tap gap is mostly on the blocks without canal water (Natham (65.7% of households, 9.3% canal), Vedasandur (84.3% of households, 1.1% canal), Thoppampatty (93.2% of households, 7.4% canal), Shanarpatti (96.7% of households, 7.9% canal), Guziliamparai (96.8% of households, 0.0% canal), Oddanchatram (96.8% of households, 0.0% canal) and Vadamadurai (98.5% of households, 0.0% canal)); Kodaikanal (72.8% of households, 42.1% canal), Nilakottai (91.3% of households, 20.5% canal), Palani (95.8% of households, 15.2% canal), Reddiarchatram (95.9% of households, 18.2% canal), Athoor (96.4% of households, 12.2% canal), Dindigul (98.7% of households, 15.5% canal) and Batlagundu (98.9% of households, 17.3% canal) are the exception, with canal water and a gap.
| 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 |
| Athoor | 22 | 96.4% | 10,359 ha | 12.2% | 68.9% | 15.4% | over-exploited(22 of 22) | 86 | 0 | 58 d |
| Batlagundu | 17 | 98.9% | 3,119 ha | 17.3% | 69.8% | 12.9% | over-exploited(17 of 17) | 68 | 0 | 33 d |
| Dindigul | 14 | 98.7% | 1,256 ha | 15.5% | 73.3% | 11.2% | over-exploited(14 of 14) | 192 | 0 | 33 d |
| Guziliamparai | 17 | 96.8% | 3,103 ha | 0.0% | 70.1% | 29.9% | over-exploited(17 of 17) | 256 | 0 | 32 d |
| Kodaikanal | 15 | 72.8% | 1,679 ha | 42.1% | 8.4% | 0.1% | safe(15 of 15) | 21 | 0 | 53 d |
| Natham | 23 | 65.7% | 4,202 ha | 9.3% | 78.4% | 12.3% | semi-critical(23 of 23) | 630 | 0 | 33 d |
| Nilakottai | 23 | 91.3% | 4,672 ha | 20.5% | 79.5% | 0.1% | over-exploited(23 of 23) | 117 | 0 | 58 d |
| Oddanchatram | 35 | 96.8% | 8,166 ha | 0.0% | 96.3% | 3.7% | over-exploited(35 of 35) | 140 | 6 | 95 d |
| Palani | 20 | 95.8% | 8,727 ha | 15.2% | 58.8% | 26.0% | semi-critical(20 of 20) | 116 | 0 | 86 d |
| Reddiarchatram | 24 | 95.9% | 8,674 ha | 18.2% | 67.2% | 14.6% | over-exploited(24 of 24) | 170 | 0 | 17 d |
| Shanarpatti | 21 | 96.7% | 5,037 ha | 7.9% | 82.8% | 9.3% | over-exploited(21 of 21) | 532 | 0 | 57 d |
| Thoppampatty | 38 | 93.2% | 16,672 ha | 7.4% | 90.0% | 2.6% | semi-critical(38 of 38) | 167 | 0 | 81 d |
| Vadamadurai | 15 | 98.5% | 3,619 ha | 0.0% | 93.7% | 6.3% | over-exploited(15 of 15) | 198 | 0 | 47 d |
| Vedasandur | 22 | 84.3% | 6,083 ha | 1.1% | 93.4% | 5.5% | over-exploited(22 of 22) | 274 | 0 | 46 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 238 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.
Dindigul 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 279 Panchayats; 27 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, Dindigul, and PAPD, Dindigul (the two signatories on the last page; the committee-constitution order lists PA, PD as the District Committee's convenor), for the District Committee; published on the Dindigul district website's documents 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 2019-10-24, 4 pages. Read the plan (PDF). The plan prints no date and the PDF carries no metadata dates (pdfinfo shows neither CreationDate nor ModDate). The last page carries hand-dated signatures: PAPD, Dindigul 23.10.19 (a second signature below it is dated 23/10/19) and District Collector, Dindigul 24/10/19. The collectorate documents listing dates the entry 29/10/2019 and the file sits under the 2019/10 upload path (2019102954.pdf). The same site holds the committee-constitution order of 27.08.2019 and minutes of committee meetings on 12.09.2019, 25.09.2019 and 09.10.2019. The edition is labelled 2019 and dated to the Collector's signature.
Transcription checked against the document on 2026-09-18.
| Figure | As stated | Where |
|---|---|---|
Polluted river stretches in Dindigul district, as stated by the plan Printed in words as a statement, not a count; it is the entire content of the polluted-river-stretches section and cites no list. Dindigul is not among the six Tamil Nadu stretches named in the neighbouring districts' plans. | 0 stretches | p. 4 (PDF p. 4) |
Plastic recycling units identified to obtain registration from TNPCB Not a water figure; kept because it is the only numeric count the plan prints. Item c. of the plastic-waste section, which the OCR layer letters 'C.'. | 32 units | p. 2 (PDF p. 2) |
Action points the plan sets for water: creating awareness to public through special task force constituted as per g.o.no. 58 of maws dept dated: 20.04.2019.; monitoring of industries by periodical collection of water / waste water samples for ascertaing water quality.; dindigul corporation : treated sewage from common stp is used for irrigation after mixing with treated effluent from cetp (talco). remaining part is disposed into sengulam for rechange of ground water.; collection of data regarding discharge of sewage and disposal of solid waste in river stretch with quantity and prepare digital mapping with above details.; desilting, removal of enchroachments & flood control measures; taluk level task force constituted shall conduct surprise check of the illegal mining activities.. Two things to know when reading the PDF: The PDF is an image scan with no text layer (four JPEG pages, no CreationDate, ModDate, title or author): pdftotext returns empty pages, so the page text used for the quote check is tesseract OCR of 300 dpi renders, and every quote was also read against the page image. No page carries a printed page number, so printedPage is set equal to pdfPage (the cover heading is on page 1). The cover prints the title on two lines, 'District Environmental Plan for' over 'Dindigul District', with no office name, emblem or date; the publisher is taken from the signature blocks on page 4. The solid-waste list is numbered '1' while every other section is lettered, and its items run f. to j. with no a. to e.; the bio-medical items a. and b. sit on page 1 and c. and d. on page 2, and the OCR layer renders the lower-case item letter c. as 'C.' on page 2 (twice), which collides with the 'C. Plastic Waste Management' heading. The polluted-river-stretches heading is printed 'Polluted River Stretches (PWD)/Local Bodies)' with an unmatched closing bracket, and its whole content is one sentence, 'There is no polluted river stretches in Dindigul District', with no reference to the CPCB list it answers. The treated-sewage section is one sentence on Dindigul Corporation: treated sewage from the common STP is used for irrigation after mixing with treated effluent from the CETP (TALCO), and the remainder is disposed into Sengulam for groundwater recharge; no STP or CETP capacity, sewage generation or treated volume is printed, and TALCO is not expanded. The only numbers the plan prints are '100%' door-to-door collection (a target), G.O.No. 58 of MAWS Dept dated 20.04.2019, '32 Nos' plastic recycling units, and 'Rules 2016'; no water body or tank count, groundwater status, BOD, tannery or industrial effluent figure, Kodaikanal lake or sand-mining figure appears, and Kodaikanal is not mentioned although its Municipality sits on the committee. The signature block prints 'PAPD' unexpanded over 'Dindigul'; two signatures sit on that side, hand-dated 23.10.19 and 23/10/19, and the District Collector's signature is hand-dated 24/10/19. Spellings are as printed: 'bulps', 'Awarness', 'ascertaing', 'enchroachments', 'rechange', 'manufactures'; page 4 shows faint bleed-through of the same text from the sheet behind. The e-waste section's third item (page 4) is lettered 'c.' but the OCR layer renders it as 'es'; no quote is taken from that line.
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.
Find a Gram Panchayat
Every one of the 306 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.
306 Gram Panchayats. 301 water profile, 5 directory record.
| 16-pudur | Thoppampatty | 223462 | Water profile |
| A. Kalayamputhur | Palani | 223397 | Water profile |
| A.Vellodu | Dindigul | 223270 | Water profile |
| Adaloor | Reddiarchatram | 223417 | Water profile |
| Adiyanuthu | Dindigul | 223271 | Water profile |
| Adukkam | Kodaikanal | 223301 | Water profile |
| Akkaraipatti | Athoor | 223248 | Water profile |
| Akkaraipatty | Thoppampatty | 223463 | Water profile |
| Alagupatti | Reddiarchatram | 223418 | Water profile |
| Alamarathupatti | Athoor | 223249 | Water profile |
| Alambadi | Guziliamparai | 223284 | Water profile |
| Amarapoondi | Palani | 223398 | Water profile |
| Ambathurai | Athoor | 223250 | Water profile |
| Ambilikai | Oddanchatram | 223362 | Water profile |
| Ammapatti | Reddiarchatram | 223419 | Water profile |
| Ammapatti | Vedasandur | 223532 | Water profile |
| Anaipatti | Dindigul | 223272 | Water profile |
| Andipatti | Palani | 223399 | Water profile |
| Anjukulipatti | Shanarpatti | 223441 | Water profile |
| Anumandarayankottai | Reddiarchatram | 223420 | Water profile |
| Appanuthu | Thoppampatty | 223464 | Water profile |
| Appipalayam | Thoppampatty | 223465 | Water profile |
| Appiyampatty | Thoppampatty | 223466 | Water profile |
| Arasappapillaipatti | Oddanchatram | 223363 | Water profile |
| Athikombai | Oddanchatram | 223364 | Water profile |
| Athoor | Athoor | 223251 | Water profile |
| Avichipatti | Natham | 223316 | Water profile |
| Avilipatti | Shanarpatti | 223442 | Water profile |
| Ayyankottai | Athoor | 223252 | Water profile |
| Balakrishnapuram | Dindigul | 223273 | Water profile |
| Bodikammanvadi | Athoor | 223253 | Water profile |
| Bodurvarpatty | Thoppampatty | 223467 | Water profile |
| Boothagudi | Natham | 223317 | Water profile |
| Chatrapatti | Oddanchatram | 223365 | Water profile |
| Chellapanaickenpatti | Natham | 223318 | Water profile |
| Chettinaickanpatti | Dindigul | 223274 | Water profile |
| Chettiyapatti | Athoor | 223254 | Water profile |
| Chinnakalayamputhur | Palani | 223401 | Water profile |
| Chinnakkampatti | Oddanchatram | 223366 | Water profile |
| Chinnuluppai | Guziliamparai | 223285 | 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.
306 of 306 Panchayats have a mapped boundary. The polygons are not drawn on this page.
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 2019-10-24 | 2026-09-06 | 2026-09-18 | 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.