Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao directed officials to prepare an action plan for effective and optimum utilisation of minor irrigation water resources for agriculture in ITDA Agency areas and in areas where STs are in majority.
Chief Minister held a review meeting on utilization of minor irrigation resources in ST areas here on Monday. Minor irrigation water resources like ponds, canals may be used for supply of water for cultivation in Agency areas and areas of ST habitations where water from major irrigation projects are used for cultivation. The land in these areas is uneven with hills and valleys and water may be supplied through pipeline for cultivation, he added.
Podu lands issue will be resolved shortly and will get clarity on how much cultivable land is present in these areas, the Chief Minister said.
“There are 46,500 tanks, in these 12,154 are chain of tanks, 16,771 are isolated tanks. Quantity wise 90% of tanks with water storage capacity were rejuvenated through Mission Kakatiya. Water from irrigation projects should be supplied to these tanks in this monsoon season. Feeder canals, sluice canals may be constructed by this summer to make the rain water to flow into these tanks” said the Chief Minister.
“Integrated plan should be drawn up for irrigation in the Agency areas. Find out how much of water is supplied through major irrigation projects and for other land water should be supplied through minor irrigation resources,” he instructed.
Chief Secretary SK Joshi, Principal Secretary to CM S. Narsing Rao, Irrigation Engineers-in-Chief Muralidhar and Vijay Prakash, MLAs Podem Veeraiah, Rega Kantha Rao, Athram Saku, Sunke Ravi Shankar, Durgam Chinnaiah, Chanti Kranthi Kiran, Bandla Krishna Mohan Reddy and others participated.