ISLAMABAD: The Asian Develop­ment Bank president has recommended two project loans of $150 million for rehabilitation and upgradation of 90-year-old Trimu and Panjnad barrages in Punjab.

“The project is located on a trans-boundary river. The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 allocates all waters from the Indus, Jhelum and Chenab rivers to Pakistan. Therefore, no trans-boundary impact on the project is foreseen,” says an ADB report.

The project’s technical viability and sustainability have been assessed as part of a diligence exercise. The assessment indicates that the two barrages are running at a high risk of failure which will affect 1.74 million hectares of land and deprive 600,000 farming families of irrigation water for several crop seasons in seven districts – Bahawalpur, Jhang, Lodhran, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Rahimyar Khan and Vehari.

The project is part of the Punjab Irrigated Agriculture Productivity Management Improvement Programme for on-farm water and agriculture management.

Loan will be used to rehabilitate, upgrade Trimu and Panjnad

The ADB president’s recommendation has paved way for the executive board to formally approve the loans — $100m from special funds resources and $50m from ordinary capital resources.

The Trimu barrage is on the Chenab downstream of its confluence with Jhelum. Sedimentation has reduced the barrage’s flood passage capacity by 30 per cent. The Panjnad barrage is also on Chenab, downstream from Trimu.

Ageing, structural deterioration and instability and low flood passage capacity have exposed the barrages to high risks of failure resulting in unreliable irrigation supplies and downstream flooding.

In Punjab, the irrigation infrastructure has seriously deteriorated because of ageing and deferred maintenance. Climate variability will further add risks by changing frequency and intensity of extreme events such as flood and drought.

The infrastructure has an estimated replacement value of $20 billion, while the estimated cost of upgrading the system to modern standards is $3.5bn.

The project will strengthen the existing structures against climate variability, erosion and sedimentation and increase their flood passage capacity significantly. The project will also build capacity of communities in flood risk management, making the structures and the communities resilient to extreme events such as flood. The upstream structures reasonably buffer the two barrages against high water and sediment flows.

The project outputs will be achieved by increasing the flood capacities of Trimu by 94pc and of Panjnad by 25pc, improving the stability of the existing structures against floods, climate variability, erosion and sedimentation and providing social facilities such as a public park and an upgraded basic health unit and a girls’ school.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2014