Wanted: Urgent repairs for village tanks in Anantapur

Anantapur-Puttaparthi : Several village tanks in the undivided Anantapur district, most of them were constructed during the reign of Emperor Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara Empire, are in urgent need of maintenance and repairs.

There are 1,468 village tanks in the district, out of which, 550 tank bunds were damaged and weakened over the years due to the vagaries of nature. The tanks in Penukonda, Raptadu, Dharmavaram, Kadiri, Madakasira, Kalyandurg, Puttaparthi and Rayadurgam are in precarious state and need immediate attention.

In Kadiri region alone, there are 250 village tanks and half of them are in bad shape and need of repairs. The tank gates and shutters are completely rusted and cannot be operated in times of emergencies. Despite appeals by people and farmers to take up permanent measures, the officials are allegedly reacting to emergencies only, but not taking steps for permanent solution. It was alleged that whenever tanks develop breaches due to incessant rains, officials will temporarily close the breaches with sandbags and doing nothing to solve the problem permanently.

Most of these tank bunds and irrigation equipment like gates and shutters had been badly mauled by years of rainfall and occasional floods and repairs must be done on an emergency basis.

Irrigation officials have admitted that these tanks can store more water from Tungabhadra and HNSS, than major reservoirs like Chitravathi, PABR and Penakacherla, but being neglected.

The authorities concerned sent proposals to the government for taking up repairs of 550 village tanks at an estimated cost of Rs 400 crore. But no funds came in the last five years.

Now farmers of the district are urging the TDP government to sanction the funds needed for taking up tank repairs on a massive scale.

“Restoration and renovation of villàge tanks should be given paramount importance”, observed ‘Rayalaseema Irrigation Projects Watch’ members B Nagendra Prasad and M Suresh Babu and Vaishnava Sreenath in a report submitted to the State government. They observed that filling of village tanks with the available water will improve groundwater levels and will restore about 2.5 lakh borewells that have been dried up. The members regretted that the earlier YSRCP government allocated zero budget for completing the pending projects.

Incentivising farmers towards cultivation of millets like Korralu, foxtail millet, jowar etc, popular in the region, would save a lot of irrigation water and provide guaranteed remunerative price to farmers, the members felt.