Much before the summer and the monsoon, the Andhra Pradesh Government has planned “Village-level Water Budget” across the State. Accordingly, Chief Minister Chandra Babu Naidu has announced a special programme for 116 days starting from February to June.
The proposed programme will be held under the “Neeru Pragathi” to promote water conservation, repair of all canals and replenishing groundwater.
In a meeting on State Water Resources Development held on Monday, Officials from AP Space Application Centre explained to the Chief Minister that they will use information on rainfall, runoff, demand, MI and WC capacity, soil type, and other factors to plan water conservation on a village-level basis. This will be under Village-level Water Budget Planning, and rainwater harvesting structures have been proposed in different pockets across the state.
The Chief Minister said that they should study the impact of rainfall, MI tanks and irrigation on ground water. “If we can ensure that there is surplus in agricultural production by increasing groundwater levels, then we can say we were successful”, he said.
He said the departments should work with the goals of maximum extent of irrigation for both the rabi and kharif seasons.
“Water demand, availability, GSDP contribution of agriculture and yield - must be information that should be synchronised with the agriculture department and analysed,” he said. He also told them to make sure that the Drones Corporation sets into action the plan of recording all progress, demarcating boundaries, mark and tag all cascades and tanks.
He was informed by the officers that there are a total 5,80,000 farm ponds in the State, and 91.07 TMC of water fill up 44.74 per cent of all MI tanks. This data was collected through an app, which is successfully mapping all the water levels of MI tanks and updating it real-time.
The Chief Minister also reviewed Irrigation Projects construction. Out of the 28 priority irrigation projects, six more are ready for inauguration: The Pogonda reservoir, which will irrigate 8,000 acres so far, the Gorukallu Reservoir, which will have a capacity of 12.44 TMC, the Owk tunnel, which has already transferred 30 TMC of water to Kadapa this year, the Puli Kanuma lI Scheme which will stabilise 26,000 acres and the Chinasana lI Scheme.
The Chief Minister asked officials to ensure that the Kuppam Branch Canal is completed by March 15, the Adavipally reservoir is ready by April 15 to transfer water to Chittoor and that Kondaveeti Vagu is ready to start five pumps from the end of March.
Proposed Barrage near Vykuntapuram, to fulfill drinking water needs of the capital city of Amaravati:
The Chief Minister reviewed a draft project report, about the proposed barrage near Vykuntapuram on the river Krishna. The barrage is 3.068 km long and is located 23 km upstream of the Prakasam Barrage and around 60 km downstream of the Pulichintala dam.
Officials will present a finalised Detailed Project Report (DPR) to the Chief Minister on February 5.
The Chief Minister also reviewed the progress of the Polavaram and other priority irrigation projects at the Secretariat on Monday. This was the 49th review, which began with a virtual evaluation, and a discussion in the presence of Irrigation Minister Devineni Uma Maheswar Rao and Water Resources Secretary Shashi Bhushan among other officials.
In the last one week, 1.9 lakh cubic metres of earthwork has been excavated, and the total balance excavation is 281 lakh cubic metres.
3,826 cubic metres of concrete has been laid in the Spillway and Stilling Basin from 22nd to 28th January. Including Spill Channel, the total concrete works completed so far is 4.92 lakh cubic metres, out of 34.04 lakh cubic metres.
929.2m of the length of the diaphragm wall has been completed, out of a total of 1,427m.
The Chief Minister instructed officials to upload real-time updated information on the progress of the Polavaram project on to a website. He said that photos and virtual reality options must be available to anyone who wants to know the status of the project.