6th water census report delayed in Nizamabad district

Nizamabad: The sixth water census of Nizamabad district is delayed, as the officials of concerned department haven't yet completed the data collection due to the general elections.

As per the schedule, data collection should be completed by February, all levels of scrutiny should be conducted in March, data entry in April and verification should be done in May month.

And the final report should be submitted to the Central government by June 2019 and it should be published in July. But data collection is still in the process in the district due to the elections held across the State.

On the recommendations of the National Commission on Agriculture, Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) has been conducting Minor Irrigation Census in the country since 1986-87 on quinquennial basis, with an objective to build a sound and reliable database on the minor irrigation sources existing in the country.

The data so generated is being used for estimating the availability of ground water and its use, especially for irrigation and also for formulation of realistic policies for water resources development.

The criteria followed for census of minor irrigation which form basis for data collection, have varied from time to time and formally command area of 2000 hectares are considered as minor irrigation scheme.

Under minor irrigation scheme, there are two types – ground water and surface flow schemes – which should be covered in the census.

The ground water scheme comprises of dug wells and bore wells. Again, bore wells is three types – shallow (35 meters), medium tube wells (70 meters) and deep tube wells (70 meters and above).

Surface water scheme includes surface flow schemes and surface lift irrigation schemes. All these 6 types of schemes should be covered in the census.

So far, five Censuses have been conducted and it is now proposed to conduct 6th Minor Irrigation Census and Census of Water Bodies and both the censuses have been planned to conduct with reference year 2017-18. Under the 6th MI Census, it is proposed to collect information relating to all the minor irrigation sources such as ground water schemes and surface water schemes.

Directorate of Economics and Statistics is identified as a Nodal Department for compilation of Minor Irrigation Statistics for Telangana State. The head of the nodal Department i.e., and the director is designated as 'Census Commissioner' will be the in-charge of complete Census work.

The Water Body Census will cover all the water bodies, that is 323 ponds, lakes, 2,253 tanks, 42 Telangana State Irrigation Development Corporation (TSIDC) lift irrigation schemes, 13 minor project reservoirs, 12 ongoing minor projects, water conservation schemes etc., located in Nizamabad rural and urban areas.

The four major projects in Nizamabad district are not covered by the Census.