Hyderabad: Telangana irrigation minister N. Uttam Kumar Reddy called for a unified national framework under which every water-conservation work would form part of a single water-security plan, carry a unique identity, have a clearly designated responsible agency and deliver a measurable outcome.
Highlighting Telangana’s achievements, Uttam Kumar Reddy said the state was recognised as the best-performing State under Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari in 2025, while 13 Telangana districts figured among India’s top 50 districts in water conservation. Expressing concern over reservoir sedimentation, Uttam said Telangana’s 159 major and medium reservoirs had a combined capacity of around 929 TMC. Studies covering 18 projects with an assessed capacity of 222.90 TMC found that 40.97 TMC, or approximately 22.95 per cent, had been lost to sedimentation.
Uttam Kumar Reddy said rainwater conservation must become a people’s movement, with suitable recharge facilities for households, conservation structures for agricultural fields and dependable community water bodies for villages. Each intervention, however, must be scientifically designed according to local geology, aquifers, runoff patterns and actual water requirements. Without effective convergence, this could lead to fragmented planning, unsuitable site selection, duplication, repeated reporting and poor maintenance, he said. Performance, he said, should be judged by storage restored, groundwater recharge achieved, improvement in water levels, functionality of assets and year-round water availability—not merely by the number of structures built.
The minister proposed geo-tagging and assigning a unique identity to every asset, linking it to its funding source and placing it under a clearly named custodian. Addressing the Jal Sanchay Jan Bhagidari– the first-ever departmental summit organised by the Ministry of Jal Shakti at Sushma Swaraj Bhawan in New Delhi on Wednesday, he said water security should not be treated merely as an engineering responsibility or departmental programme, but as a public mission crucial to drinking water, agricultural stability, rural livelihoods, urban resilience and environmental protection.