Musi River Ecology and Traditional Irrigation of Sangareddy

Sangareddy district, on Hyderabad's western outskirts, is traversed by the Musi river's upper and middle course. Traditional communities in Sangareddy built check dams and percolation tanks across the Musi's tributaries — a practice that historically supported rain-fed cotton and jowar cultivation in the dry Telangana uplands. The Singur Dam and Reservoir on the Musi, completed in 1989, provides drinking water to Hyderabad city. The reservoir's catchment area in Sangareddy's forested uplands is a critical water security zone, and the Telangana government has declared the reservoir's catchment a protected water supply area with restrictions on agricultural chemical use. Traditional farming communities in the catchment participate in watershed protection as a livelihood under government programmes.