Written by PPL Newsroom• October 4, 2026• 5:26 am• Nature & Wildlife

Telangana’s water bodies fall from 64,056 to 53,685 in second national census

The second Census of Water Bodies shows a 16.19 per cent drop since 2017-18, with small village ponds the hardest hit and urban counts also lower.

Telangana now has 10,371 fewer recorded water bodies than it did eight years ago. According to the Second Census of Water Bodies, the count fell from 64,056 in 2017-18 to 53,685 in 2025. The findings were released as part of Volume II, Part II of the census, which covers 19 states and two Union Territories.

The fall works out to 16.19 per cent. In everyday terms, roughly one in every six water bodies counted in the first round does not appear in the second. Telangana is one of five states that reported declines. The others are Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.

Ponds, villages and private owners

Ponds, usually the smallest structures, account for the biggest loss. They number 24,182 now, down from 27,003 in the first census, the sharpest fall of any category in the state.

The census shows how rural the state’s water network is. Of the 53,685 water bodies, 53,244 are in rural areas and only 441 are in urban areas. The first census had put the urban figure at 992. Most of the water bodies, 30,973, are mainly used for irrigation. Another 6,740 are privately owned, and many of those belong to farmers.

The census does not, in the material reviewed, explain why the numbers fell. It records the type, ownership, condition, use, storage capacity, filling status and encroachment of each water body. Officials describe drying, siltation, encroachment and changing land use as growing pressures.

The earlier baseline

The first census gave a useful reference point. It found that 80.8 per cent of Telangana’s water bodies were in use, while the rest had dried up or been destroyed beyond repair. It also recorded 3,032 encroached water bodies, about 4.3 per cent of the total.

Telangana officials had expected improvement. Soon after the first census, an irrigation official told Telangana Today that the effect of Mission Kakatiya and other water conservation initiatives would be reflected in the next census. Mission Kakatiya is the state’s tank-restoration programme.

What this means for India

Water bodies are the backbone of rural water security in Telangana, where most are used for irrigation. They also support groundwater recharge and local wildlife. The census is meant to give a database to support planning for the preservation, conservation and renovation of water bodies. Nationally, the picture is uneven. Maharashtra recorded 4.74 lakh water bodies, nearly five times its first-census count. Other states fell. Telangana’s data now gives planners a measurable baseline to check against restoration efforts.

What happens next

The government says it is using the census alongside Mission Amrit Sarovar, the repair, renovation and restoration of water bodies, and AMRUT 2.0. The stated aim is to turn the data into targeted conservation, groundwater management and climate-resilience measures.

The second census was launched on 3 April 2025, with 2023-24 as its reference year. Readers should therefore treat the “eight years” as the gap between the two survey rounds. Detailed district-level data should show where the losses are concentrated and how many structures were lost to dryness, encroachment or other causes.