Telangana to Desilt Reservoirs, Use Silt Sales for Maintenance

Hyderabad: The state government will take up desilting reservoirs and adopt a revenue generation model by which money earned through sale of dredged silt will be ploughed back for reservoir maintenance. This was among a series of decisions taken at a meeting of a Cabinet sub-committee on desiltation of reservoirs, headed by irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, with agriculture minister Tummala Nageswara Rao, and excise minister Jupally Krishna Rao as members.

The meeting on Monday was attended by senior officials from irrigation and other departments that will be involved with the entire exercise.

Uttam Kumar Reddy called for a global tender for desilting, and that the process must ensure transparency and should be efficient. “Timely completion of the work should be a priority and the Telangana Mineral Development Corporation will be tasked with estimating the sand and soil deposits that are likely to be dredged and extracted. The revenues generated from sale of these materials must be used for reservoir maintenance,” he said.

The quantification of silt will be made using satellite images and bathymetric surveys, and best practices in other states should be studied to ensure best possible results, he said.

The Cabinet sub-committee also stressed the importance of inter-departmental coordination to expedite the desiltation process. To ensure effective implementation, the committee proposed forming two specialised committees - a high-power committee with external experts and representatives from various departments, and a technical committee with experts from the I&CAD department.

These committees will focus on hydrology, dam safety, and design to ensure no danger comes to the projects themselves during the desiltation.

Once the desiltation is completed, the reservoirs holding capacity for water will increase, even as the committee took note of the stay order given by Supreme court of India on NGT’s orders on sand extraction in Manair river and expressed opinion that environmental clearance is not an issue for taking up the desiltation of reservoirs.