Many villages in the Telangana region are parched and labeled as dry, drought-hit, and torrid. People were high and dry about their hard labour. Jangaon, Maddur, and other mandals of the erstwhile Warangal district were always in drought.
Thanks to the efforts of chief minister Mr K Chandrasekhar Rao who turned the tide within eight years of separate Telangana formation.
When the Telangana was denied even the Krishna and Godavari waters in an integrated state, the separate Telangana government has taken up a series of steps to change the whole scenario.
The CM not only envisioned bringing under irrigation one crore 25,000 acres under cultivation but also made efforts in this direction. He not only expedited the completion of all pending irrigation projects, he even boldly took up the stupendous Kaleswaram project and completed it within record time. He revived the defunct check dams, and sluices and revived obsolete canals.
The CM appointed 19 engineers-in-chiefs and chief engineers. In the last eight years, the ruling TRS government spent Rs 1,38,128 crore for the revival of the irrigation system in the state.
Earlier, the allocation was only just 38,406 crore.
With the new efforts, 16.45 lakh acres were stabilised – Kaleswaram ((18.25 lakh acres), Sitarama Lift Irrigation project (3.87 lakh acres), Devadula lift irrigation scheme (5.58 lakh acres), Mahatma Gandhi lift irrigation scheme (4.24 lakh acres) Jawaharlal lift irrigation scheme (two lakh acres) were started.
A total of 27,812 tanks were revived spending Rs 5,438 crore bringing a total of 1.05 lakh acres under cultivation. With these efforts, the water now available is 8.93 tmc.
Though there were rains for the last three years, efforts were made not to allow any tank to breach.
In addition, a total of 1200 check dams were taken up with Rs 3,850 crore and in the first phase, 638 dams were taken up. In 2020-21 a total of 86 lakh acres came under cultivation newly and groundwater level rose by 4.14 metres.
All these steps led to increased production of fish and now Telangana is ranked as the eighth biggest producer of fish.
The paddy production which was 4.54 million tonnes has now increased to 9.63 million tonnes.
By Gollapudi Srinivasa Rao