 "Telangana looks to the skies for success of irrigation projects")
Rain still eludes Telangana, which has faced two years of drought and a severe household water shortage last summer. A third year will test the limits of farmer endurance. And, likely to negate whatever relief they had got from the Rs 1 lakh (each) loan waiver implemented for 3.6 million farmers by the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government after it took over the reins of power in 2014.
As the last tranche of loan waiver is to be settled with banks in the current year, the government will have an additional Rs 5,000-odd-crore at its disposal for spending on other rural programmes from next year.
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Apple Inc’s chief, Tim Cook, gave the state a word of praise in May; it had chosen Hyderabad to locate its first development centre outside the US. The government would like similar goodwill for work on the rural front.
Though half the state’s 35 million population depends on agriculture, the sector’s contribution to the gross value added during 2015-16 (advance estimates) was about 14 per cent, a further two per cent drop from 16.1 per cent in 2011-12. Within the primary sector, agricultural crop output fell 13.3 per cent.
The government hopes to bring some balance through creation of assured irrigation to hitherto rain-fed areas by utilising the riverwater allocations, which were central to the separate statehood demand.
Though the leadership has managed to keep public opinion largely in favour of government policies and actions in the past two years, it has started facing resistance in matters of land acquisition for establishment of big industrial parks and the like for expanding the manufacturing sector.
Since all the large industrial parks and multi-product special economic zones (SEZs) were located in the Andhra region, the state bifurcation left Telangana with 24 single-product SEZs in the information technology (IT) segment, in and around Hyderabad.
Pressure is palpable in the government as rains or their absence is going to influence the narrative about performance, as its rural sector priorities were centered around water.
Mission Kakatiya, one of the early flagship programmes, will show results only if the thousands of small lakes/tanks, that were restored under it, receive rainwater at least this year. Tanks were the dominant source of irrigation in Telangana till the 1950s. The government had identified 46,300 irrigation tanks, with a target to restore 9,000 lakes every year in a five-year period, starting from 2015. According to official information, the department had so far spent Rs 1,030 crore and fully restored 7,000 tanks, besides increasing their storage capacity. The second phase of works on a similar number is on.
After the improvement in rural roads, the most visible government-sponsored activity in the villages was Mission Kakatiya, followed by another flagship programme called Mission Bhageeratha. This envisages the creation of a state water grid, with an aim to deliver water to every home by the year 2019. The government proposes to draw 42 tmc (billion cubic ft) from the Krishna and Godavari rivers to supply treated drinking water at 100 litres per capita per day in rural households, 135 litres per capita in municipalities and 150 litres in municipal corporations through the grid.
It was proposed to cover 6,000 villages by the end of 2016 and 95 per cent of villages by 2017 under this programme. Officials in the government say the execution is well on course. The project cost of Mission Bhageeratha is estimated at Rs 47,000 crore, a part of it coming from central agencies like Hudco and Nabard, in addition to the state Budget. If the rains fail to augment riverwater availability, among the other surface water sources, it is not going to be easy to supply treated drinking water to all the households in 6,000 villages by the end of this year.
Again linked to rains is the government’s promise of providing water from the three near-complete irrigation projects of Bhima, Kalwakurthy and Nettempadu to drought-prone Mahabubnagar, a source of migrant construction labour across big cities in India.
Opposition parties are watching to see if the government keeps the promise this year. It needs to spend around Rs Rs 800 crore to complete the remaining works in these projects. Yet, even if these get completed, there is no guarantee that the proposed 600,000 acres will receive water, as these schemes were conceived on surplus flows of the Krishna river. Only big rains in the upper catchments in Karnataka or Maharashtra can bring water for these projects.
There are large irrigation projects like the redesigned Kaleshwaram lift irrigation project proposed on the Godavari, for which the chief minister laid the foundation stone in May this year. The estimated cost is Rs 82,000 crore. It is supposed to create irrigation potential on 1.8 million acres across seven districts. The government said it was going to spend Rs 25,000 crore every year to complete these large projects, so that all the 1,200 tmc of riverwater allocation could be utilised.
Apart from irrigation, there is much more that needs to be done by the government for the growth of industry as well, say those in the sector.
“Hyderabad has successfully regained its prominence as a preferred hub of the IT and software industry. The government has done a fairly good job in bringing out an industrial-friendly policy framework, besides marketing the city well. But, this needs to be backed by strengthening the infrastructure, logistics and the availability of trained personnel,” Srikanth Badiga, director of the Phoenix Group and co-chairman of Assocham’s Telangana Development Council, said.
Industries Department Secretary Arvind Kumar says the government is trying to build on the existing strengths of Hyderabad in the first stage. For instance, as the city accounts for a third of pharmaceutical production in the country, the government is setting up a pharma city project on 14,000 acres. It is working with the Union environment ministry to get clearance for the entire park.
In January this year, the central government had granted final clearance to a 12,635-acre national investment and manufacturing zone in Medak district, for which land acquisition is on. In addition, the industries department recently requested the Union commerce ministry to grant an okay for two multi-product SEZs, to be developed as co-terminus with two dry ports, as this is a land-locked state.
Also a regional Ring Road around the city of Hyderabad, with 13 industrial nodes covering five or six districts, is being planned. These are going to be the future growth engines of the state, said Kumar.
Monday: Rajasthan