Hyderabad: Senior BJP leader Gudur Narayana Reddy on Saturday suggested a three-point action plan to help Telangana handle the prolonged water, agriculture and power challenges from El Niño conditions. He said the situation needs practical coordination between the government, experts, farmers and local communities.
He was responding to the latest review by Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy on the emerging water situation. Gudur Narayana Reddy said the government was right to stress drinking water supplies and to prepare for difficult conditions in the coming months. He said the next stage should turn broad policy directions into localised, measurable and publicly accessible action.
“The Chief Minister’s latest review correctly recognises the scale of the water and power challenge. With reservoir storage constrained and the next several months expected to remain difficult, protecting drinking water must remain the first priority while farmers should be given clear and usable guidance on crop choices,” he said. Narayana Reddy placed three practical suggestions before the State Government in a constructive and non-partisan spirit.
His first proposal was a small, time-bound technical cell. It would include officials from the Irrigation, Groundwater and Agriculture departments, along with independent hydrologists and agronomists. They could come from agricultural universities, research institutions or ICAR institutes. He clarified that the body should not become another large committee or bureaucratic structure. It should work as a compact group with a specific mandate to give mandal-wise assessments of water availability and agricultural options every week.
“The farmer in Kamareddy, Nalgonda, Mahabubnagar or any other affected district does not merely need a general warning that water is scarce. He needs to know what the actual situation is in his mandal and what decisions he can safely take during that particular week,” he said.
Gudur Narayana Reddy said the cell should answer three basic questions in a short weekly public bulletin. The first is how much groundwater extraction is sustainable in a particular mandal. The second is which short-duration or low-water crops remain economically viable. The third is where fodder or drinking-water arrangements for livestock need strengthening. He said such localised advisories would help farmers, agriculture officials, panchayats and district administrations make informed decisions. They would not have to rely only on general appeals to reduce water consumption.
He suggested the cell could work for a limited period, preferably until June 2027, after which officials could review its utility. He said its reports should be public and should reach mandal and village levels.
Recharge works and a public dashboard
The senior BJP leader’s second recommendation was to speed up community-level groundwater recharge and water-conservation works in the most stressed mandals. He said officials could take up desilting of existing tanks and check-dams, farm ponds and percolation pits on priority before peak summer sets in. “These are not massive projects requiring years of execution. Many of them are comparatively low-cost interventions which can improve groundwater recharge, strengthen drinking-water security and preserve residual soil moisture for the next agricultural season,” he said.
Gudur Narayana Reddy suggested that the government identify around 200 of the most water-stressed mandals and prepare a targeted works programme for them. This would avoid spreading resources thinly across the State. He said the government could combine available State resources and rural employment programmes for these works. That would also create jobs for agricultural labourers and rural households hit by reduced cultivation. He further suggested aligning the works with the special employment initiatives the State Government is planning, linking drought mitigation with livelihood protection.
The third proposal was a simple public monitoring dashboard covering three critical indicators. These are reservoir releases, movement of drinking-water tankers and electricity supply hours to agricultural feeders. Narayana Reddy said public access to these figures would help the government, political parties, local elected representatives and citizens spot stress points before they become emergencies. He said transparency would also reduce speculation and anxiety among farmers and residents in the coming months.
“A public dashboard need not be complicated. If people can see the storage and releases from reservoirs, where drinking-water tankers are being deployed and how many hours of power agricultural feeders are receiving, it will create confidence and also permit early course-correction wherever there is a problem,” he said.
Gudur Narayana Reddy stressed that Telangana faces a climatic challenge that could hit agriculture, drinking water, electricity generation, groundwater levels, livestock and rural employment at once. He said departmental responses should therefore not work in isolation. “The challenge before Telangana is not confined to one department. Drinking water, irrigation, agriculture, groundwater, power, livestock and rural employment are interconnected. Decisions in one sector will have consequences for the others,” he said.
He said farmers would inevitably have to reconsider crop choices where water is inadequate. However, he said the responsibility for conservation should not rest entirely on them. “The government must make sure that farmers who shift to less water-intensive crops are supported with appropriate seed availability, technical advice, procurement confidence and market access. Otherwise, asking them merely to change cultivation patterns will not be sufficient,” he said.
Gudur Narayana Reddy said earlier warnings about rainfall deficits and El Niño had already shown the need for advance preparedness. BJP leaders had earlier raised crop diversification, reservoir management, power supply, damage assessment, farmers’ compensation and consultation with all political parties. However, he said the immediate need is to move beyond debate over responsibility and set up a system that can respond to changing conditions every week. “The weather situation will not remain static. Groundwater levels, reservoir availability, crop conditions and drinking-water demand will keep changing. Telangana therefore needs a dynamic response mechanism rather than a one-time review,” he said.
The BJP leader said political parties should be ready to contribute constructively wherever the State needs cooperation. “El Niño is a shared climatic reality. The response can and should become a shared administrative and community effort. If the government creates a transparent mechanism and takes evidence-based decisions, the BJP will extend whatever technical or organisational cooperation is useful in protecting farmers and ensuring drinking-water security,” Narayana Reddy said.
He added that the coming months should be a period of intensive water management and preparedness, with weekly monitoring replacing last-minute crisis management. “The objective should be simple – every available drop of water must be accounted for, every farmer should receive reliable local information, and every vulnerable habitation should be identified well before it faces a drinking-water emergency,” he said.