HYDERABAD: Even as the State continues to receive deficit rainfall, the Central government’s scheme to revive water bodies in Telangana is progressing at a snail’s pace.
This is compounding to the already prevalent water woes. Under the Ministry of Jal Shakti’s Repair Renovation and Restoration (RRR) scheme for water bodies, only 164 out of the 575 water bodies that were selected in Telangana have been revived as of March, 2019.
This figure which translates to only 28 per cent revival of water bodies -- is one of the lowest among the other 12 states which were included in the scheme. For instance, in Tamil Nadu where 153 water bodies were included for the scheme, 104 were completed by March (67 per cent). Similarly, for Odisha where 863 were included in the RRR scheme, a mammoth 715 water bodies were completed (82.8 per cent).
The only two states that are worse off than Telangana are Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand where works on none of the water bodies that were included in the scheme were completed till March. Apart from this, in Telangana, funds for the scheme are also massively under utilised. While the estimated cost for the scheme for the State was `459.18 crore, only `94.51 crore was spent till March.
Similarly, while the storage capacity of the water bodies that the Centre was aiming to revive was 56.21 Million Cubic Metres (MCM), it was only able to rejuvenate 24.61 MCM of storage.Meanwhile, works for reviving traditional water bodies were also taken up in the State under the MGNREGS during the last three years. In that, 38,573 water bodies were taken up in the last three years.
Telangana water bodies await revival
Under the Repair Renovation and Restoration scheme for water bodies, only 164 out of the 575 water bodies that were selected in Telangana have been revived as of March, 2019