Telangana: Decision Support Systems to be installed in all irrigation projects

The State government was taking steps to speed up the process of installing sensor based Decision Support Systems (DSS) in all the Irrigation projects and pump houses.

Hyderabad: In order to keep track of water levels and inflows into all major dams and reservoirs across the State through real-time input alerts, the State government was taking steps to speed up the process of installing sensor based Decision Support Systems (DSS) in all the Irrigation projects and pump houses in the State. A total of 77 projects, 75 pump houses and ponds would be connected with DSS .

According to Irrigation Department officials, the DSS has been successfully functioning at the Kaleshwaram project and is helping in knowing about the real-time data of water inflows and outflows in reservoirs, pump houses and canals. Irrigation command areas suffer from problems of inadequate and unreliable water supply, having wide gaps between irrigation potential created and utilised, hence, the government has decided to install DSS to find out the real-time data of all the irrigation projects in the State, they added.

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The amount of water supplied to the agriculture sector from canals could also be assessed with the help of DSS and even find out details pertaining to the extent of agricultural land irrigated with the water supplied from canals, officials stated. “It will facilitate smart management of water levels and inflows into all major dams and reservoirs across the State through real-time input alerts,” they added.

The DSS provides demand-based water release strategies for reducing the gap between canal supplies and demands and to help irrigation engineers in planning, operation and management of irrigation systems efficiently, a senior irrigation official explained.

According to Irrigation officials, the DSS would increase the decision making efficiency at various levels of a system and would provide alternate information that may be useful in improving water management. The State government has already installed sensors in many reservoirs and canals through which officials were getting real-time alerts on water discharge and water levels in reservoirs.

Special Chief Secretary(Irrigation) Rajat Kumar has recently directed officials to install sensors in the reservoirs and canals in the State and speed up the process of installing DSS.