BALLOKI: The rehabilitation and upgradation of the century-old Balloki barrage would be complete by next September which would help improve irrigation and facilitate economic growth, a senior official of the Punjab Irrigation Department told journalists visiting the project site.

After rehabilitation the barrage would get a lease of another 100 years.

The project would serve to reduce poverty among the 275,000 families harvesting wheat, rice, maize, cotton, sugarcane, flowers, vegetables and other crops in areas of the Lower Bari Doab.

With assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Punjab government had launched the Punjab Irrigated Agriculture Investment Programme under which the Lower Bari Doab canal improvement project had been undertaken as a model project. The ADB had provided $217 million for the project.

The official said the project would help enhance supply of irrigation water, improve distribution, strengthen safety infrastructure and mitigate flood risks. It would also strengthen institutions dealing with issues of water management and agriculture.

The project would increase the barrage’s capacity to 385,000 cusecs from 220,000 cusecs.

According to the official, the rehabilitation of the canal is almost complete and only 30 per cent work on the barrage remains to be done.

The additional spillway will irrigate 1.74 million acres covering about two-thirds of the land in Punjab.

The project involves construction of head regulator, a spillway and associated bridges to mitigate flood risks and damages.

A hydrological analysis has also been carried out to identify upstream effects of the Thein Dam in India, and natural and manmade changes to Ravi river channel.

Annual cropping in Punjab stands at 122 per cent and may reach 200 per cent in some areas. This will increase water shortfalls during drought, with the country already having lost some 30pc of the storage capacity of the Indus Basin due to reservoir sedimentation.

Punjab needs an estimated $3.5 billion for its agriculture sector and the ADB has agreed to make investments of up to $700m.

Published in Dawn, November 13th , 2014