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Utilise Neeru-Pragathi for water conservation: Chief Minister
The State government is going to conduct a 116-day Neeru-Pragathi programme from February to June across the State to promote water conservation, carry out repairs to all canals and replenish groundwater.Â
Amaravati: The State government is going to conduct a 116-day Neeru-Pragathi programme from February to June across the State to promote water conservation, carry out repairs to all canals and replenish groundwater.
The Water Resources department will finalise the dates, budget, schedules and a detailed plan after consultation with the Chief Minister. During a teleconference with officials of various departments on Monday, the Chief Minister said Water Users Associations (WUAs) should participate actively in the 116-day Neeru-Pragathi programme and ensure completion of works. He gave indication that the elections to the Water Users Associations would be conducted in June.
The Chief Minister further directed officials to lay more focus on agriculture. He said the zero budget natural farming formula being implemented in Andhra Pradesh had attracted experts in recent WEF summit in Davos.
Officials from AP Space Application Centre explained to the Chief Minister that they will use information on rainfall, runoff, demand, soil type, and other factors to plan water conservation on a village-level basis. This would 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 the experts of Space Application Centre should study the impact of rainfall, minor irrigation tanks and irrigation on groundwater. “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 further said that the departments must 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 synchronized 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.
Officials told the Chief Minister that there were a total 5,80,000 farm ponds in the State and 91.07 tmcft of water fill up 44.74% of all minor irrigation tanks. This data was collected through an app, which is successfully mapping the water levels of minor irrigation tanks and updating it real-time.
The Chief Minister also directed officials to speed up housing construction as per targets as there was huge demand for houses from public. He said that only 64 per cent of houses had been completed under 2016-17 NTR Grameen Housing scheme. He suggested to district collectors that labour component should be increased in lieu of material component in the MGNREGA works.
