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Rejuvenating Tanksin Telangana
"Mission Kakatiya" is an ambitious project launched by the Government of Telangana to rejuvenate 47,000 tanks in the state by 2020. This article argues that it would be the repetition of the old historical mistake to approach the issue without taking into consideration the hydrological and ecological aspects. Picking up only those tanks which have water generated in their catchments would save a lot of precious money.
Agriculture is the primary source of income for 78% of the population of the newly carved state of Telangana, but currently it produces only 30% of the total income of the state (Pingle 2011). Eighty-five percent of the cultivated area is rain-fed; tank irrigation still remains one of the major support for agriculture (Deccan Chronicle 2015). Marginal- and small-holdings constitute 86% of total agriculture holdings in the state, making agriculture a subsistence source of livelihood for majority of the population (Directorate of Economics and Statistics 2015).
Telangana has 47,907 tanks with an irrigation potential of 2,263,498 acres spread over 10 districts. Between 1956 and 2001, there has been a reduction in the tank-irrigated area in the range of 4.5 lakh acres (Nag 2011). Currently, the state statistics claim that only 37% of the potential tank-irrigated area is served by the tanks in the state.
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