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Ch. Prashanth Reddy

HYDERABAD, March 18

AYYAPUGANIPALLI is a small hamlet with 60 households and a total population of 348, located in Ramakuppam mandal of Chittoor district. It has a small tank which used to meet the irrigation needs of 23 acres of cultivable land. During the last three decades the tank has almost become defunct due to siltation, encroachment, breakdown of channels and breaches in the tank bund.

The fate of this tank is not an isolated case in Andhra Pradesh. There are 29,187 such tanks, which are not currently in use. The tanks have become silted up; bunds and sluices dilapidated.

With the initiative of an NGO, the Ayyapuganipalli tank has been restored, but this is not so with many other tanks. Incidentally, tanks occupied a dominant place in irrigation in South India, particularly in Andhra Pradesh which had the distinction of having the highest number of tanks and the largest area irrigated under tanks in the country.

However, in the last four decades, tank, as a major source of irrigation, had lost its significance. In 1955-56, when the State was formed, there were 58,527 tanks irrigating about 10.68 lakh hectares. Today, the total number of tanks has increased to 79,000, but the area under irrigation has declined to 8.62 lakh hectares.

The colonial and post-colonial Government policies towards minor irrigation, specifically tanks, have substantially contributed to the decline of tank irrigation. The successive Governments had given priority to large-scale canal irrigation at the cost of minor irrigation, according to a study commissioned by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) - Inter cooperation NGO Programme, Andhra Pradesh.

The study on the "Status of tank management institutions in rain-fed areas of Andhra Pradesh'', conducted by Dr Davuluri Venkateshwarlu and Dr K. Srinivas, states that meagre financial allocations and lack of funds for maintenance have been the contributing factors for the decline in tank irrigation.

During the first, second and third Five Year Plans, only 8,442 out of a total of 58,527 tanks were restored at an average cost of Rs 6,000 per tank. The money allocated towards maintenance expenditure remained at Rs 1.50 per acre till 1966 when the deteriorating condition of tanks forced the Government to increase it to Rs 3.50. There were subsequent revisions in the rate, reaching to a level of Rs 40 per acre.

However, the study points out, this increase is hardly sufficient to meet the rising establishment charges. The salary expenditure alone accounts for nearly 80 per cent of the maintenance budget.

This apart, the emergence of wells in the tank ayacut has led to the decline of interest in tank management among farmers who own wells. Well is a private resource whereas a tank is a common property. Moreover, well irrigation is more stable and reliable than tank irrigation.

Hence, farmers prefer to go for individually-owned wells to depending on community tanks. Consequently, the area under well irrigation has increased from 2.84 lakh hectares in 1955 to 16.76 lakh hectares in 1998.

In dry land areas, tanks are the main bodies of water conservation as they help in recharging ground water, increasingly getting depleted with the increase in the number of wells. In fact, tanks are considered to be the most useful life-saving mechanism in drought-prone areas.

The State Government had come out with legislation in 1997 enabling participation of water users legally in the operation and maintenance of irrigation systems.

But the Andhra Pradesh Farmers' Management of Irrigation Systems Act covers only the tanks that have more than 100 acres of ayacut area. About 85 per cent of tanks with less than 100 acres of ayacut area have not been brought under its purview.

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