Hyderabad, March 12 (IANS): Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday launched Mission Kakatiya, one of the flagship programmes of the government aimed at restoration of irrigation tanks across the state.

He formally launched the programme by participating in the removal of silt from a tank at Sadashivanagar in Nizamabad district.

Accompanied by Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao and other cabinet colleagues, he unveiled a pylon to mark the occasion.

The government plans to restore 46,000 tanks over the next four years at an estimated cost of Rs.25,000 crore.

The mission has been named Kakatiya as a tribute to the Kakatiya dynasty rulers, who had built a large number of irrigation tanks in Telangana.

KCR, as the chief minister is popularly known, said that Kakatiya rulers had built 80,000 tanks. He said successive rulers did not damage these tanks but during the last 60 years, the rulers from Andhra destroyed them.

The chief minister said the government would desilt the water bodies and it was the job of farmers to take away the silt.

He recalled during the movement for statehood to Telangana, he had promised to restore all the tanks. He asked public representatives to supervise the restoration works.

Harish Rao said, Mission Kaktiya would go down in the history as the biggest project of its kind ever undertaken in the country.

The minister said 9,573 tanks would be revived this year. In the budget for the period 2015-16 presented in the assembly on Wednesday, the government allocated Rs.2,083 crore.

The government has already invited tenders for 3,150 works.