The scorching summer has not only shrunk the water resources in cities and towns, but also the reservoirs and tanks located in the remote areas in deep forest. Visit Potlakona Cheruvu in Chandragiri mandal, you will certainly find the green cover on the hillocks. But in reality, it is just a camouflage to the severity of summer, which has made the mammoth tank dry up for the first time in the last several years.
Located in the reserve forest abutting Kalroadpalle village, around 30 km west of Tirupati, the tank nestle under three hillocks --Pathikonda, Yanamalabotu and Bollugundladhadi, all falling under the Seshachalam Range of the Eastern Ghats. As the region falls under ‘below average’ rainfall category, the tank, with a catchment area of 7.23 sq. miles, used to cater to the irrigation needs of 350 acres in kharif and 290 acres in rabi. But, the tank has almost dried up, giving a hard time to farmers. The sluice on the tank bund, which was strengthened in the early 2000s, is now in a state of disarray.
The low-level outlet (Marava) was constructed by removing a huge boulder called ‘Irulollagundu’, which suggests that it was the habitat of ‘Irulas’, a plain area tribal community.
“The ‘Marava’ was meant to safeguard the bund during floods, but water hardly ever flowed through this into the stream,” says Pulipati Nagulu Naidu, former president of Kalroadpalle Water Users Association (WUA) and a retired school headmaster.The tank was designed to irrigate the fields of the nearby Kalroadpalle, Kotha Indlu and Danamoorthypalle villages, but it hardly succeeded in meeting the needs of even the first village in the row.
The tank, with a catchment area of 7.23 sq. miles, used to cater to the irrigation needs of 350 acres in kharif and 290
acres in rabi
