The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Police desilt tank

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Police desilt tank

By Our Staff Reporter

KARIMNAGAR, JUNE 8. To win over the hearts of the rural masses, the Yellareddypet police have taken up desiltation of an irrigation tank in the interior naxalite-affected Akkapalli village of Yellareddypet mandal with the support of Bala Vikas Sangham, a voluntary organisation. This village, without any road connectivity, is starved of development due to the stigma of naxalites' presence. Though the village is surrounded thickly by huge mountains providing a good catchment area for filling of an irrigation tank, water was being washed away due to siltation in the tank. Even the `Neeru-meeru' programme was not taken up in this village.

On the other hand, naxalites set fire to a poclain during the last year when it was deployed for taking up continuous contour trenching works along the hillocks in the village.

The depletion of ground water table and continuous drought forced a farmer, G Rajaiah, to commit suicide in the village recently. Incidentally, the Yellareddypet police have noticed this problem when they visited the village for bandobust duties for the elections.

As promised after the elections, the Yellareddypet SI, K. Nagendra Chary, with the support of Bala Vikas Sangham, deployed a poclain and some 15 tractors for desiltation of the tank.

The desiltation programme was taken up for a period of 18 days from May 18 to June 4 this year and removed about 10,050 cubic meters of silt from the tank.

Farmers have shifted about 3,350 tractor loads of silt to their respective fields to improve fertility of the soil.

Besides, the police have also strengthened the tank bund which developed breaches on two occasions and also removed all the shrubs from the tank. The feeder channels and canals have also been created for the easy flow of water.

The village sarpanch, C. Vijaya, has said that earlier the tank was not even providing irrigation facilities to 30 acres of land. "But with the desiltation of the tank, we are expecting irrigation facilities to about 300 acres and also increase in the ground water table in the village," she says.

She is all praise for the police for motivating the villagers and participating in the noble cause.

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Andhra Pradesh