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TELANGANA

Geographic position and climate
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Telangana is the youngest and 29 state of Union of India was carved out from erstwhile united
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Andhra Pradesh in 2014 occupies a geographical area of 1,12,077 km . It is the twelfth largest
state both in terms of area and size of the population in the country. Telangana is located on the
Deccan Plateau and lies in the southern region of India. The state is in semi-arid region and has
predominantly hot and dry climate. The average rainfall in the state is 905 mm and 80% of this
rainfall is received through south-west monsoon. The state is divided into three agro-climatic
zones,viz. (i) Northern Telangana Zone, (ii) Central Telangana Zone and (iii) Southern
Telangana Zone. The GPS co-ordinates of the state are 17.36°N latitude and 78.47° E longitude.
About 55.4% of 35.2 million population in the state are dependent, in some form or other, on
farm activity for livelihood. The share of agriculture to the Gross State Value added (GSVA) in
2016-17 is 15.3% at current prices. There are 55.54 lakhs of land holdings in the state covering
61.97 lakh ha. Both marginal (size of < 1 ha with 62%) and small holdings (size of 1 to 2 ha)
occupy 85.9% of land holdings.

Soils

The state of Telangana is predominant with red (54%) followed by black (23%) and alluvio-
colluvial (9%) type of soils. Taxonomically they mostly belong to Entisols, Inceptisols, Alfisols,
Vertisols and sporadically to Mollisols and Oxisols. Altogether, there are 22 types of soils in the
state that vary in texture, depth, water holding capacity and nutrient fertility. At the same time,
their health for supporting principal crops is also hindered by low organic carbon content (mean
of 0.48%), low nitrogen availability (in 96% area), deficiency of zinc (28%), boron (34%) and
sulphur (28%). The cultivated lands are also locally less productive due to salinity (5.69 lakh ha),
alkalinity (1.20 lakh ha) and upper soil calcareousness (1.60 lakh ha). Deep calcareous soils to an
extent of 8.91 lakh ha that have implications on horticultural fruit crops are spread in all the
district of the state except in undivided Karimnagar and Rangareddy districts. The soils of
Telangana state also prone to water-erosion and such soils with more than 5 tons of loss of soil /
ha / year are found to be spread in an area of 4.59 mha requiring immediate attention for soil
conservation measures.

Crops and cropping systems

The major crops in the state are rice, cotton, maize, pulses, soybean and sugarcane. The
predominant cropping systems are rice-rice, rice-maize, maize-maize and rice-groundnut. The
net sown area in the state is about 41.7 lakh ha. The net and gross area irrigated in the state
during 2015-16 was 14.8 and 20.2 lakh ha with irrigation intensity of 1.36. More than 80% of
irrigated area is through tube / open wells. The average productivity of principal crops during
2015-16 were 2,913 kg in respect of rice, maize with 3,057 kg, red gram with 421 kg., 991 kg for
jowar, and bengal gram with 721 kgs. The cropping intensity was 117%. The major horticultural
crops in the state are mango (0.95 lakh ha), chillies (90.82 lakh ha) and turmeric (0.43 lakh ha).
Sweet orange is usually grown in calcareous belt of selected areas.