Telangana’s Mission Kakatiya, Mission Bhagiratha again win central applause

The State's flagship initiatives, Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha, have once again come in for appreciation by Central agencies.

Hyderabad: The State’s flagship initiatives, Mission Kakatiya and Mission Bhagiratha, have once again come in for appreciation by Central agencies. These initiatives, along with other interventions taken up by the Telangana government have aided in increasing ground water recharge and reduction in ground water extraction, the agencies said.

According to the Dynamic Ground Water Resource Assessment Report 2022 released by union Minister of Jal Shakti Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Wednesday, the annual Ground Water Recharge in Telangana has increased from 16.63 to 21.11 billion cubic meters (BCM). In simple terms, the ground water table increased by about 4.4 meters when compared to 2020.

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The assessment was carried out jointly by Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) and State governments. As compared to 2020 assessment, the total Annual Ground Water Recharge of the State has increased from 16.63 bcm to 21.11bcm. This is mainly due increase in recharge from ‘Other sources’. Further, the Annual Extractable Ground Water Resources has increased from 15.03 bcm to 19.09 bcm, the report said.

More importantly, the interventions taken up by the State government have also aided in decreasing the overall Stage of Ground Water Extraction from 53.32 per cent to 41.6 per cent. ”This can be attributed to government interventions like water conservation activities under Mission Kakatiya, improvement in surface water irrigation and drinking water supply under Mission Bhagiratha etc,” the report said.

The total Annual Groundwater recharge of Telangana has been assessed as 21.27 bcm and Annual extractable Ground Water resource as 19.25bcm. The Annual Ground Water Extraction is 8.0 bcm and Stage of Ground Water Extraction is 41.6 percent, which is lowest compared with other States, including BJP-ruled States like Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

As part of the assessment study, 594 mandals (units) were assessed. Of these, 13 units (just two percent) have been categorized as ‘Over Exploited’, while seven units (one percent) as ‘Critical’, 80units as ‘Semi-Critical’ and 494 units (83 percent as ‘Safe’. There is no ‘Saline’ category of assessment unit in the State.

Across the country, 7,089 assessment units (Blocks/ Districts/ Mandals/ Talukas/Firkas) were assessed. Of these, 1,006 units (14 percent) have been categorized as ‘Over-Exploited’, 260 units (four percent) have been categorized as ‘Critical’, 885 units (12 percent) have been categorized as ’Semi-Critical’ and 4,780 units (67 percent) have been categorized as ‘Safe‘.