Mission Kakatiya can do wonders, says Waterman

Hyderabad: Well-known water conservationist Rajendra Singh, known as the ‘Waterman of India’, said on Tuesday that Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao deserved all the praise for opening new vistas of opportunity for the people of the new State on the water front, thanks to three flagship programmes Mission Kakatiya, Mission Bhagiratha and the Kaleshwaram project.

 

Addressing a batch of trainee engineers at the Water and Land Management Training and Research Institute (Walamtari) here, he said a great deal of good work was done under Mission Kakatiya project. “I want to congratulate the Chief Minister as the volume of work done so far under the three programmes is without doubt significantly higher when compared to any other State in the country. So is the case with budgetary allocations,” he said.

“When I received the Stockholm Water Prize, I was asked whether there was any initiative from the government side for water conservation in India. I proudly acknowledged the service rendered by Chandrashekhar Rao through Mission Kakatiya. I celebrated by birthday at one of the tanks rejuvenated under Mission Bhagiratha programme in the State,” he said.

Community role

“What I would like to advocate for the implementation of Phase V of Mission Kakatiya is that it should have total community participation. In the initial phases of the programme, the volume of work involved was quite huge. The tanks were neglected for four to five decades and we cannot expect it to be free from contractors because of work involved was on a large scale,” Rajendra Singh said.

Now that only tanks of smaller sizes with ayacut of each one ranging from ten to less than 100 acres are involved in  the fifth phase of the programme, it can be implemented restricting it totally to the participation of the farmers, he said, adding that there need not be any role for contractors who only think of profits rather than the net benefit for the users, especially the farmers. “It will give the farmers a great deal of honour as well as a sense of belonging,” he stressed.

Rajendra Singh said Mission Kakatiya can be shaped into the best model of community-driven, decentralised and sustainable water management model in the world. The desilting of tanks has given an opportunity for  application of tank bed soil to farmlands, adding to their fertility as well as yields, he pointed out.

‘Good beginning’

Rajendra Singh said Mission Bhagiratha was a good beginning in the direction of providing people with safe drinking water by developing a watergrid and integrating water sources from both Krishna and Godavari basins. “When 17,000 tmc of water flows waste into the sea, there is nothing wrong in making use of some 90 tmc of it to quench the thirst of the people in the water-starved State,” he said.

 

Stating that Kaleshwaram project will help revive the natural flow of the river in its driest stretches, he said the natural flow of a river has to be ensured as this will give life to a river. At the same time, the sea too has a right on the river flow as it is with the case of mankind. He exuded confidence that Kaleshwaram would add to the life of the river unlike other projects  that killed the rivers.