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| July 30, 2005 | Saturday | Jumadi-us-Sani 22, 1426 |
Over Rs316bn to be spent on water projects
ISLAMABAD, July 29: The government would spend Rs316.2 billion to overcome the scarcity of water through the construction of medium and large dams and by efficient utilization of irrigation water during the next five years.
An allocation of Rs316.2 billion has been planned for the water sector, including the federal allocation of Rs258 billion and provincial allocation of Rs58.2 billion during the period, says an official document.
The federal programme will mainly cater to the ongoing projects, which have a throw-forward of Rs258 billion.
When contacted, officials here on Friday said nine ongoing dam/canal projects including Gomal, Raising of Mangla, Mirani, Sabakzai and Satpara Dams, Greater Thal, Kachhi and Rainee canals and modernization of barrages in the Punjab would be completed during the next five years.
In addition, the sources said revamping and rehabilitation of irrigation system of Sindh and Punjab, extension and rehabilitation of Pat Feeder and Khirther canals and construction of 43 minors in Balochistan will also be undertaken during the period.
They said Rs152 billion had been proposed for irrigation projects, hoping that after completion of these projects and improvement of water courses the overall water availability will increase by 14.67 MAF. An additional area of 3.2 MA will be brought under irrigation, the sources added.
To a question on the main objectives of 2005-10 plan for water sector, they said these include restoring the productivity of agricultural land through control of waterlogging, salinity and floods; managing the quantity and quality of drainage effluent in an environmentally safe manner and enhancing the performance of water sector institutions through institutional reforms, private sector participation and capacity building.
The water requirement by the year 2009-10 both for irrigation and non-irrigation is estimated at 178.3 MAF while the current water supply at farmgate is 135.7MAF (including groundwater), which is expected to increase to 150.3 MAF (including groundwater) by the year 2009-10. Thus, without efficiency improvements, there will be a gap of 28.0 MAF of water by the year 2009-10.
Answering another question, the sources said under on-going and new Salinity Control and Reclamation Projects (SCARP), a disastrous area of 1.97 million hectares inclusive of completed projects (having water table depth between 0 and 5 feet) would be reclaimed or restored for agricultural production through rehabilitation and new investments during 2005-10.
Moreover, they said, surface drains would be constructed in areas faced with surface run off resulting from rainfall or excess irrigation (e.g rice drainage) and to encourage private sector participation in drainage, efforts would continue to transfer SCARP tube-wells from the public to the private sector. Tile drainage will also be given due attention during the period.
In addition, water storage tanks will be constructed and lifting devices installed on streams to provide irrigation water to barani agricultural land during the next five years under on-farm water management programme.
Watercourse improvement would also be accelerated because it is the cheapest available option to save water or minimize water loss and alleviate poverty, the sources said and added average unit cost of water saved per acre-foot from watercourse improvement is around Rs. 12,000 and about 68,500 watercourses would be improved during 2005-10, resulting in water saving of about 6.8 MAF.
Pakistan possesses the world’s largest contiguous irrigation system commonly called as Indus Basin Irrigation system (IBIS). Irrigated agriculture is the backbone of the national economy. The level of agricultural production is directly related to the availability and effective use of water as a major input.—APP
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