THE Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority has decided to update water charges per crop acre and revise its rates for commercial consumers to shore up its finances and to gradually close the huge gap between its revenues and the maintenance cost of water channels.

Under a five-year plan now being examined by the provincial law department, the water charges would be revised and Sida’s property will also be rented out.

Sida has also decided to streamline its finances and assessment procedures pertaining to the recovery of abiyana (water cess) from commercial consumers and farmers. The decision was taken at a recent meeting chaired by its managing director Babar Effendi. A software will be developed to calculate the payments and liabilities of water cess against each consumer.

The authority uses a manual procedure to collect water charges through abdars who fall within the jurisdiction of the three area water boards (AWBs) — Left Bank, Ghotki Feeder and Nara Canal.

Against Sida’s annual operation and maintenance cost of Rs1bn in the Nara Canal AWB, we are getting just Rs25m. We intend to gradually squeeze the gap between expenditures and receipts in five years — Sida finance manager Aftab Memon

“Against Sida’s annual operation and maintenance cost of Rs1bn in the Nara Canal AWB, we are getting just Rs25m. We intend to gradually squeeze the gap between expenditures and receipts in five years,” says the authority’s finance manager, Aftab Memon.

Sida is currently focussed on digitising its finances and removing encroachments from the riverbed of the Indus and the banks of the canals. From FY002 to FY15, Rs1.035bn was to be recovered, says Memon. But Sida has been able to recover only Rs590m. Meanwhile, liabilities of Rs445m are still pending against various provincial government departments which are customers of Sida.

The major amounts relate to the Hyderabad Development Authority (Rs60m) for drinking water supplies and Hyderabad SITE (Rs30m). To recover these dues, Sida has proposed that the Sindh government deduct this amount at source. The collected amount of Rs590m is to be utilised to upgrade and maintain the irrigation infrastructure.

Sida recovers Rs3 per 1,000 gallons per day from industrial units, but sugar factories had challenged the rate in court and the authority has now won the case. However, Sida wants the rate to be raised to Rs10, considering the rising cost of maintenance. The menace of under-assessment of crops grown in each AWB also haunts the authority. This under-assessment is done by farmers in connivance with the abdars of Sida.

Then there is the refusal of payments of abiyana by influential farmers who mostly belong to the ruling party. As a result, the recovery of abiyana has become a chronic issue and prompted the authority to publicise the names of defaulters in newspapers and send them to the Election Commission of Pakistan.

By exerting pressure on defaulters, Sida hopes that the pace of recovery of pending dues will accelerate. The revenue department also recovers abiyana in areas falling under Sida’s jurisdiction. The authority is approaching the Sindh government to recover that amount.

“We are going to make better use of GIS technology to have satellite images of command areas in each AWB to see what crops are being grown by farmers and whether the recoveries of abiyana by our staff match the crops in the fields. We will overcome under-assessment scientifically,” says Sida’s general manager (transition) Nazeer Essani. This recovered cess will be used for the upkeep of the respective canal systems.

With a digitalised revenue system in place, bank counters will be established at sub-divisional levels in the three AWBs and farmers will pay the bill or deposit the challan in their relevant AWB’s bank account. Sida will sign an agreement with each AWB to determine the share of the farmer organisations and their respective AWB. Sida wants a 50-50 share for the AWBs.

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, September 7th, 2015

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