(Icon-Farm, February 12-16, 2008, p. 65)
Inrecent years, water harvesting and groundwater based irrigation have been extremely successful in arid and semi arid areas of India in increasing agricultural production. It is a matter of concern, however, that intensive drainage line treatments through water harvesting structures and increased groundwater extraction have drastically reduced average inflows to the tanks that existed before the above interventions. The present case study, shows that water inflow is almost zero in to the Chhapari tank of Kalyandurga mandal in Anantpur district of Andhra Pradesh. As a consequence, no water is available to downstream users. It means, the cascading structural, treatment in a watershed needs to be optimum and appropriate at different levels in the drainage system. This study further analyses the degradation of tank system due to over exploitation of ground water buffer and unfavorable government polices. The well population has increased from 78 to 330 and the well depths increased from 20m to more than 80m in the last two decades. Total irrigated area has increased from 92.40 to 475 ha. Number of upstream hydraulic structures has increased to 11 having storage capacity of 96 ha.m. This situation calls for restoration of traditional tanks and their proper management rather than developing new ones. The feasibility of re-establishing tank inflows to original levels without impacting severely on the livelihoods of the new irrigators in the tank catchment has remained a major issue for discussion.
