1.35L acres to get irrigated water in kharif: Collector
District Collector K Venkataramana Reddy presiding over the Irrigation Advisory Board meeting in Tirupati on Thursday. MP Dr M Gurumoorthy, MLA K Adimulam, ZP Chairman G Srinivasulu and others are seen.
Tirupati: The Irrigation Advisory Board (IAB) meeting held in Tirupati on Thursday took stock of the available water levels from various sources to make appropriate decisions on its release during the kharif season. It was attended by Tirupati MP Dr M Gurumoorthy, MLAs K Adimulam (Satyavedu), V Varaprasad (Gudur), and K Sanjeevaiah (Sullurpet), ZP Chairman G Srinivasulu, officials of irrigation department and others.
Presiding over the first meeting of IAB, District Collector K Venkata Ramana Reddy said that after the reorganisation of districts, 14 mandals of erstwhile Nellore district were merged in the newly formed Tirupati district. With this, the district is having 75 percent of irrigated water and it will be properly used by taking the suggestions from members of IAB.
Accordingly, any issues needing solutions at district level will be resolved and those issues which need state attention will be taken to the notice of the Chief Minister for further action. The meeting assumed significance as the state cabinet has decided to provide water for irrigation during kharif for the first time. The Collector said that an action plan has been made ready at district level to release water. As of now, Kandaleru reservoir has 42 TMC water storage, Araniyar reservoir – 1,386 TMCs and under 2,405 tanks in the district has 15.84 TMC water storage which can be used by farmers for cultivation.
The public representatives who attended the meeting said that the cultivation was mainly dependent on Kandaleru reservoir in the mandals clubbed in the district from erstwhile Nellore district. There is a need to properly allocate the water for cultivation and drinking water needs in view of increasing urbanisation so that future problems could be avoided. They asked the Collector to pay arrears to paddy farmers immediately. There is a need to remove silt from tanks in a big way. MLCs Vakati Narayana Reddy and Kalyan Chakravarthy, Irrigation CE Harinarayana Reddy, SE Ramagopal, Deputy SE Gangadhar Rao, EEs Ramana Reddy, Subrahmanyam, Madana Gopal, Radha Krishna Murthy and others took part in the meeting.