Village tanks need urgent repair works in Anantapur

Anantapur: The district experienced heavy rains in a decade last week, filling all the 1,500 odd village tanks. The total capacity of all the village tanks is 15 tmc of water. But considerable amount of water is wasted because of breaches to village tanks and mini-reservoirs. The silt formation in the tanks has further lowered the tank storage capacity, thus resulting in a colossal waste of water which is a precious commodity in the drought-prone district. The district has no natural rivers flowing into the district except reservoirs which depends on water supply either from the Tungabhadra dam or the Krishna river waters which are brought to the district via the Hundri Neeva project.

The district, which is supposed to get more than 20 tmc of water as per the inter-state agreement, does not get its due, due to inadequate inflows into Tungabhadra dam, poor maintenance of dam, accumulation of silt, evaporation losses and illegal diversion of water by farmers by breaking pipelines.

The PABR dam was assured of 10 tmc of water allocation at the time of its construction by the government and the Tungabhadra Board never did it gets its due. A meagre supply of 3-4 tmc of water only is channelised to it every year through the HLC canal.

Against this background, the district receiving 15 tmc of rainwater should be considered as precious but due to breaches in village tanks, considerable quantity of water is simply wasting.

Nearly 1,400 tanks are overflowing with rainwater. Most tanks are ancient and dates back to the days of emperor Sri Krishnadevaraya, who gave lot of importance to building irrigation infrastructure.

In 2019, the government released Rs 6 crore for repairs to 15 identified tanks but despite spending more than 60 per cent of the funds, nothing changed for the better and the problem of breaches was not properly addressed.

Superintendent Engineer Sudhakar Babu told The Hans India that 80 tanks were severely damaged by the recent rains. District Collector Nagalakshmi released Rs 1 crore to repair breaches of 35 tanks while a detailed report has been prepared on the district position and sent to the state government recommending funds allocation for repairs to all village tanks on a permanent basis.

The Bukkarayasamudram major tank, Roddam major tank and medium tanks in Kalyandurgam including Hulikallu, Bhairasamudram, Noothimadagu and Chennampalle tanks require Rs 1.50 crore for taking up repairs. There are also minor irrigation tanks in Bommanahal region which require funds for plugging the breaches. NP Kunta tank near Kadiri is also crying for attention. This tank is also suffered breaches but local people controlled the breaching blocking outflow with sand bags.

The village tanks not only cater to local irrigation purposes but contribute to recharging of borewells in every village. Farmers are urging the government to take up repairs of tanks on war footing failing which more rains could result in catastrophic consequences for the people in the vicinity of village tanks.