Mahbubnagar tank chain handed over to its 18-village federation

The Mahbubnagar tank chain programme began in 2018 as a four-mandal pilot. Mahbubnagar has long been one of Telangana’s most migration-prone districts; the proximate cause is the failure of the dryland economy in the lean season, but the structural cause is a chain of village tanks that have not been de-silted in living memory.

What the federation now owns

The handover document covers operations, maintenance, seasonal monitoring, and member fee collection across all 18 tanks. The federation has its own bookkeepers, trained over the last two monsoons, and a seasonal-monitoring protocol that the village panchayats sign off on every quarter.

• De-silting roster across all 18 tanks, refreshed at the start of every dry season
• Sluice operation and feeder-canal clearing during the monsoon
• Quarterly water-level review with the four mandal panchayats
• A user-fee committee that sustains routine maintenance without SEARCH grants
• A grievance and conflict-resolution process run by federation members

“My husband used to leave for Hyderabad every December and come back in May. This year, for the first time in fifteen years, he stayed home and we farmed together.”— P Saraswati, Farmer — Achampet mandal, Mahbubnagar

Seasonal migration across the cluster is down by an estimated 45% since the programme began. The kharif paddy footprint expanded from 1,200 to 3,400 hectares; the rabi groundnut footprint nearly tripled. The numbers are the headline, but what we measure as success is the federation now planning the seasonal hydrology with no SEARCH staff in the room.