KTLIS set to irrigate over 4,235 acres

Wanaparthy: The Karne Thanda Lift Irrigation scheme (KTLIS) which is scheduled to be launched by Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on March 8 in Wanaparthy district is all set to irrigate more than 4,235 acres of uplands covering across 6 gram panchayats and 16 tribal hamlets in the district.

In fact, the Telangana State government had released GO MS No 32, through the Irrigation and CAD (Project-11) department way back on August 11, 2021. And for this project the government had even given administrative sanction of Rs. 76.19 crores and even released Rs. 60 crores for taking up the works of the proposed project.

According to irrigation officials, the KLIS project will start from the Ghanapur Branch Canal, where in the engineers will construct an approach canal at 7.8 kilometers on Ghanapur Branch Canal to fill the Maisamma Lake. From the Maisamma Lake another approach canal will be constructed up to Karnathanda and a Pump house will be constructed at Karne Thanda. From this pump house two 1000 HP pump motors will lift the water up to 65 meters high and take the water through pipelines up to 2.5 kilometers at Sistern which is located towards the higher part of Karne Thanda. From there onwards 3 major canals will be constructed through which the water will be passed on to distributaries irrigating the agriculture land through gravity channels.

The three canals which will be dug include Shapur Canal, Mamidimada Canal and Jangaiah Pally canal which will irrigate 1465, 1665 and 1105 acres of agriculture lands under the respective canals.

Under Shapur canal, the villages which will get irrigation water include Shapur, Rukkanpally and various trial hamlets under Mamidimada grama panchayaties. This canal will also fill the Ganganamoni Lake and Dontikunta Thanda Lake. Under these lakes the tribal thandas including Karne Thanda, Amudam Bandal and Kotula Kunta Thandas will get irrigation waters.

Under Mamidimada canal, the agriculture lands under the Mamidamada and Lattupally grampanchayats will cover the tribal hamlets including Phulsingh Thanda, Yerragattu Thanda, Hanmya Thanda, Chinnapeer Thanda, Meetya Thanda, Dhaaku Thanda and Bhimuni Thanda will get irrigated covering over 1665 acres.

Under the Jangamaiah canal, it will irrigate lands under Jangamaiahpally, Balijapally and Pamireddypally Thanda and later it will also fill the BC Reddy Lake.

While elaborating on how the earlier rulers had ignored the agriculture sector and had done incomplete designing of irrigation projects ignoring the rural parts of Palamuru region, Agriculture Minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy said that in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh when the Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation project was designed the then rulers had done half hearted works and allocated just 25 TMC of water to cover 25,000 acres of land.

However, after formation of Telangana State, Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao had studied comprehensively on all the irrigation projects and initiated redesigning so that each and every acre of agriculture land in each and every constituency gets irrigation water. As part of this, the government had issued GO MS No 141 on September 28, 2015 allocating 40 TMC of permanent water for KLIS and increasing the ayacut from mere 25,000 acres to 3.50 lakh acres as against a total available ayacut of over 5 lakh acres.

"The Telangana government is committed to provide irrigation water to each and every acre in the State. Accordingly the government had allocated 40 TMC of permanent water to KLIS and based on this we have taken up Ghanapur Branch Canal, Pedda Mandadi Branch Canal and Buddaram Branch canal from KLIS D-8 main canal and constructed MJ-3, MJ 3A, MJ-4, MJ-6 canals and through this we are aiming provide irrigation water to each and every acre in Wanaparthy district," informed the Agriculture minister.