Revanth’s Irrigation Plan: Please Grow Something Thirsty Less

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy has discovered the final stage of irrigation policy: announcing that irrigation may not exist. Telangana may have “not a single drop” for agriculture between November and February, he says, while 15 lakh of the state’s 30 lakh agricultural pump sets have already run dry. Drinking water will come first, farmers should choose less water-intensive crops, and water stress could stretch for eight to ten months, possibly until July 2027.

The weather is real. El Niño is real. Reservoir stress is real. None of these facts, however, appointed the Chief Minister as the state’s official narrator of helplessness. In January, Revanth Reddy said there would be “no compromise whatsoever” on Telangana’s river-water interests, even as the government’s own account recorded Andhra Pradesh drawing 13 TMC against Telangana’s 2.5 TMC. The slogan was maximal. The arithmetic was less enthusiastic.

In March 2024, the government promised to tackle drought together and called for reservoir releases. The Congress administration’s latest contribution to that collective effort is dietary advice for agriculture: please select crops that do not demand the inconvenient presence of water. This is not a plan. It is a circular advising farmers to lower their expectations until the reservoirs feel better about themselves.

The timing makes the performance especially neat. The government had promised to complete the Sita Rama Lift Irrigation Project by August 2026 and bring water to seven lakh acres in the erstwhile Khammam district. The deadline has now arrived alongside a warning that irrigation may disappear for four months. Seven lakh acres were promised water; the farmers have received a seminar on thirst.

A competent government would be explaining storage levels, project completion, pumping capacity, repairs, inter-state enforcement and a contingency plan. Revanth Reddy is explaining why scarcity should be accepted as policy. The drought may be meteorological. The helplessness is administrative. Telangana elected a Chief Minister to run its water systems, not to conduct the farewell ceremony for them.