The Telangana government has named its programme of restoration of tanks as “Mission Kakatiya” as a tribute to the Kakatiya dynasty rulers who had built a large number of irrigation tanks in Telangana.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who held a review meeting on one of the flagship programmes of his government on Saturday, directed the officials to ground the works in the third week of December.
He asked officials to keep the tagline of “Mana Vooru – Mana Cheruvu” along with the programme title. The government plans to restore 45,000 tanks in the next five years. Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao, Advisor to Government R. Vidyasagar Rao, Principal Secretary S.K. Joshi, Chairman and Managing Director of Genco D. Prabhakar Rao, Engineer-in-Chief C. Muralidhar and others were present at the review meet.
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Directing officials to complete the first phase of restoration work by May 2015, the Chief Minister told them to make all payments under the programme online and ensure that it did not face paucity of funds. He asked them to prepare proposals for the second phase of works as soon as the first phase was over.
Alleging that the tanks’ system was subject to gross neglect during the rule of Seemandhra leaders in combined Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Chandrasekhar Rao said the size of tanks had shrunk deeply due to encroachments during the period. He noted that the restoration of tanks would also help rural artisans engaged in different vocations.
He suggested the formation of all-community councils in villages to protect the tanks and their supply channels from encroachments as tanks would also improve the groundwater table. He also reviewed the Palamuru lift irrigation scheme on which survey was in progress and asked the officials to allocate power separately to such schemes to avoid problems.
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Mr. Harish Rao said later that tenders would be invited for restoration works in two weeks.