Chief Minister N.Chandrababu Naidu will be launching ‘Neeru-Chettu’ programme from Thambalapalle village in Chittoor district on Thursday to kick-start measures for water conservation, improve ground water table to make the State drought-proof within five years. The whole administrative and political machinery transform the flagship programme into a people’s movement and take up repairs and maintenance of canals, reservoirs, lift irrigation schemes, check dams and de-silting of tanks in a campaign mode across the State in the next five months. This will increase their capacity to store rain and surface water, Mr.Naidu said.
On the eve of ‘ Neeru-Chettu’ launch, Mr.Naidu held a review meeting with the Ministers and officials of Rural Development, Forest, Water Resource, Ground Water, MA &UD and later a video conference with all the District Collectors on Wednesday.
Emphasising on a focused approach, he said there would be no dearth of funds repair and de-silting. But priority, however, be given to works which cost less but have greater impact. The works would be taken up by involving Janmabhoomi committees from village, mandal, district level and also the water users associations.
Mr. Naidu said though THE State had 36 per cent deficit rainfall, because of constant monitoring by officers under ‘Polam Pilusthondi’ programme, agriculture sector registered a growth of 11.32 per cent. The next target by effective water conservation and utilisation would be to achieve 20 to 25 per cent agriculture growth rate. Of 395 lakh acres in the State, about 200 lakh acres were cultivable but only 50 per cent of it was irrigated area. The target is to bring the balance 100 lakh acres also under irrigation, he said.
Of 1,557 tmc of dependable yield, only 1,299 tmc was utilised now and of 3,525 tmc flood water going to sea hardly any thing was being utilised, he said.
