Come rain or shine, this Telangana village keeps its green alive | Hyderabad News
Hyderabad: At a time when farmers across Telangana are bearing the brunt of El Niño and deciding what to sow next, and Maharashtra has declared drought in 34 of its 36 districts, villagers of Gottigarpalli in Sangareddy are preparing to sow their third crop of the year. In a region where farming can hinge on the monsoon, the villagers here are reaping the benefits of how they prepared their farms over the last two decades.For nearly 25 years, farmers in Gottigarpalli have relied on water conserved through the Four Waters Concept (FWC), which treats rainwater, surface water, groundwater and soil moisture as one system. “We have been able to raise three crops a year, including water-intensive crops such as sugarcane, since the initiative was introduced in 2001-02,” says Amru Nayak (80), a farmer with two acres.“Through the FWC method, we have been able to maintain our village’s water levels ourselves, without having to depend on the irrigation department’s water supply,” said Rachaiah Begari, sarpanch. Gottigarpalli was among the early sites where the approach, developed by the late irrigation engineer T Hanumantha Rao, was implemented in Telangana. Across its 500-hectare watershed, the idea was to slow rainwater, hold it at different points and allow it to seep into the soil instead of letting it go to waste. “There was no single large reservoir or irrigation project at the centre of it. Instead, the watershed was treated from ridge to valley through a network of small structures and vegetation,” says Mohammad Afsar, a watershed expert who was involved in taking FWC from Telangana to Rajasthan.The farmers saw the first changes in their wells. Before the intervention, the village largely depended on jowar, bajra and ambada, which are drought-resistant, rain-fed crops. “Even after drilling borewells hundreds of feet deep, there was no water,” says B Narsimlu, a farmer. The intervention was followed by the digging of around 80 borewells for landless and impoverished individuals on assigned lands, with farmers beginning to get four to five inches of water.Farmers who once planned their year according to rainfall shifted to cash crops over the years, including potatoes, sugarcane and ginger. Today, nearly 80% of the cultivated area is under sugarcane, farmers said. Kanaka Raju (34), who completed his MBA before returning to the village to take up agriculture, said, “Water can now be found at around 50 feet even on elevated land, while at ground level and further down the ridge, it is readily available.” “Even if it does not rain, we can survive for at least a couple of years,” he added.The economics of the initiative was another major reason for its adoption by farmers. “Large irrigation infrastructure could have cost us lakhs. When this method was first introduced, it cost only Rs 5,000 per acre,” says Md Murtaza, who primarily grows sugarcane and had just finished harvesting soybean. “We have become a drought-proof village,” he said. The physical structures that made this possible have endured over the years. A percolation tank built in 2001-02 continues to hold water and support vegetation, while a sunken pond at the lower end of the watershed has water oozing from the ground, farmers said.But Gottigarpalli could not become a template for the whole state. Marri Shashidhar Reddy, former Sanathnagar MLA and former vice-chairperson of National Disaster Management Authority, said, “FWC was implemented in several Telangana villages between 2001 and 2004, but did not become a statewide strategy as the state later focused on major lift irrigation projects.”The model, however, travelled outside Telangana. Rajasthan adopted FWC under the Mukhyamantri Jal Swavalamban Abhiyan (MJSA) between 2014 and 2018 across 33 districts. A March 2025 assessment by Afsar along with a team of experts in Banswara, Jhalawar, Sirohi and Udaipur reported a shift from single to double and triple cropping, year-round drinking water and groundwater recharge. Borewell depths also reduced in parts of Sirohi and Udaipur despite increased irrigation.For Gottigarpalli, the experiment that was coined 25 years ago has become visible in the way agriculture is practised there. What remains unanswered is why a model that survived two decades in one Telangana village never travelled as far across the state as it did in Rajasthan.Arvind Kumar Sharma, a farmer from Jhalawar, Rajasthan said that, “Work carried out through Four Waters has helped us irrigate nearly 3,000 bighas of farmland in Sarod village of Bhawani Mandi block in Jhalawar district. Earlier, farmers had little access to irrigation water and were largely dependent on rainfall, allowing them to grow only one crop a year. The wells would also dry up by September, creating serious problems for farming.”He added that “After the water conservation work, the situation has changed significantly. Farmers are now able to cultivate during both crop seasons and have sufficient water for irrigation throughout the year. Where the wells used to run dry by September, water is now available for all 12 months. The work has increased agricultural activity, improved farmers’ economic condition and brought considerable happiness to the village. It has been an important step towards ensuring water security and a better agricultural future for the farmers of Sarod.”
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