WASHINGTON, Oct 28: The World Bank has drafted a plan to tackle salinisation and water-logging in its Indus Basin project in Pakistan, the world’s largest irrigation system.

Previous World Bank assistance focused on repairs of breaches in canal embankments, removal of debris deposited in the canal prisms and repair of control structures, drainage structures and water storage infrastructure.

The proposed plan is more comprehensive and includes some of the suggestions Pakistan had submitted to the bank in 2004 along with its national water resources strategy. A World Bank inspection panel, convened after complaints from Pakistanis in 2004, concluded in July that the $785 million World Bank project did not sufficiently take into account the downstream effects on local residents.

The World Bank has already spent $18 million on improving living conditions in the affected areas since 2004 and is proposing a flood management and coastal development plan between now and 2009, as well as improving the irrigation and drainage infrastructure between 2009 and 2016.

The World Bank report, prepared ahead of an Oct 31 board meeting on the plan, says that there are risks to delaying implementation of the plan, “as well as risks arising from technical factors, difficulties in reaching consensus.”

The national water resources strategy that Pakistan submitted to the bank in 2004, suggested:

— providing an updated comprehensive water sector plan up to year 2025 for guidance on investment planning and management of water sector and a medium term investment plan up to year 2011

— Sought suggestions for specific investment proposals responsive to the national development programme.

Pakistan’s irrigation system is the largest integrated irrigation network in the world, serving 36 million acres of contiguous cultivated land.

The irrigated agriculture system fed by the Indus and its tributaries account for about a quarter of Pakistan’s gross domestic product, two-thirds of its employment and about 80 per cent of its exports.

The system includes three major storage reservoirs with live storage capacity of 12.7 mega acre feet. There are 80 small dams and barrages, 19 inter-river link canals and 12 independent irrigation canal commands.

Responding to the recent drought and political conflicts over water, Pakistan has proposed a huge investment programme in water resources development. Under this plan, nearly $8 billion will be spent over the next 10 years and over $30 billion by 2025. More than three-fourths of this investment would be for new storage dams, hydropower capacity, and for new canals.

Non-governmental organisations, however, oppose World Bank funding of a new canal and dam network in Pakistan.

They complain that the Indus delta already faces major degradation threats that could well result in catastrophe.

The major cause of destruction of the delta is the reduction in the flow of fresh water from the Indus. As the delta dries up and the mangrove forests decline, the sea is slowly sweeping in. The delta is now said to be only 10 per cent of its original area.