HYDERABAD, Sept 7: The Sindh Abadgar Board has expressed concern over slow pace of work on the lining of watercourses under the World Bank and the National Programme.

In a letter addressed to the prime minister, the president of the board, Abdul Majeed Nizamani, said on Tuesday that two separate but parallel projects of watercourse lining were initiated in the year 2004 to improve irrigation water supply at the farm level, but they have not been completed yet.

He said that only 63 watercourses from the National Programme and only two from the World Bank Programme were fully completed so far and 143 were under construction which had exposed pathetic pace of completion of these projects.

He said lack of coordination among the executing agencies, unfavourable policies and a difficult procedure for approval of work were few the factors which were causing the delay.

Mr Nizamani said that minimum lining of 10,000 watercourses per year could only ensure success of the project.

He said 33,200 watercourses will be lined by 2009, out of which 4,200 would be financed by the World Bank while the remaining would be funded by the federal government.

He said these projects would save more than 15 MAF canal water after completion.

He feared an increase in the cost of the project, decrease in the economical benefit and even failure of the project, if pace of the lining would not accelerate.

The SAB president said that one of the important issues was to extend watercourses lining that were left partly completed under previous schemes.