Hyderabad: A division bench comprising Chief Justice Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta and Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar of the Hyderabad High Court Monday directed the Telangana State government to constitute water management authorities as contemplated under AP Water, Land and Trees Act, 2002 (WALTA) at mandal, district and state level to protect lakes, tanks and ponds.

The bench granted the interim orders while dealing with a PIL by Ranga Reddy Zilla Cheruvula Parirakshana Samiti, represented by its president G.R. Karunakar.

He contended that the WALTA Act 2002 and also A.P. Farmers Management of Irrigation Schemes Act 1997 contemplate formation of authorities that have powers to protect and oversee the revival of tanks.

After perusing the provisions of the WALTA Act, the bench felt that as per Section 3 of the Act, the authorities can be constituted without delay till the constitution of water management committees with the farmers and irrigation officials by conducting elections.

When the bench asked the counsel for the government take immediate steps to constitute the committees, he replied that the state government has already identified about 44,000 tanks and taken Mission Kakatiya project for restoring the tanks, following the direction of this court in another petitions.

As the officials are busy with the project, he urged the court to grant three months time to constitute the authorities.

Justice Sengupta said, “chain of irrigation tanks in the rural area of the Telangana a biggest resource for the state and if those tanks are properly restored the dependency on the borewells for the irrigation will automatically decrease.”