Telangana on Saturday signed an agreement with ISRO to become the first Indian state to use space technology for real-time monitoring of its water resources.

The irrigation department signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to create the Telangana Water Resources Information System (TWRIS).

This will go online with ISRO’s Bhuvan geo-platform, capturing every dam, barrage, main canal and other resources up to field channels.

The MoU was signed in the presence of Telangana Irrigation Minister Harish Rao and ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar.

Located in Hyderabad, NRSC will prepare a framework and mark every irrigation system on the Bhuvan satellite visualisation tool.

Kiran Kumar said they were happy that Telangana was becoming a proactive user of the data system. He said the data was available not just from ISRO’s own satellite but also from other collaborative space agencies.

Harish Rao said the system would work faster than Google maps to enable the state to monitor the depth and quantity in all water sources.

The data will be updated every 15 days and, from chief engineer to field engineer, every officer will have on-hand information.

The minister said the data would also help the state know the exact area irrigated under each project and cropping pattern.

He hoped that the system would help improve efficiency of the department and bring transparency as the data will be available to every citizen.

The system is also expected to come handy for impact assessment of Mission Kakatiya, the state government’s flagship programme under which 45,000 irrigation tanks are being restored.

Harish Rao said the data would also be vital for survey, design and implementation of new irrigation projects.