KARACHI, April 7: Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan on Friday called for a network of lined watercourses in the province to help agriculture sector enhance its production capacity.

In a high-level meeting held at Governor’s House, Mr Ibad was informed that some 40 per cent water goes waste in the field because of mismanaged distribution of water into channels.

The meeting was informed that focus is also paid to ensure that water reaches the tail-end.

The governor was informed that Sindh has three barrages with 14 canals taken out of them.

These canals have small and big branches having a total length of 64000 km. These include 44,085 km long government approved watercourses. Of them, watercourses which have been lined are 7576 Km long and another 4000 are in the final stage of being lined.

It was stated that cost of Water Courses Lining Programme is Rs 25,013.39 million, including Rs 19,758.76 million as federal government share which comes to about 80 per cent of the programme cost.

The provincial government has provided Rs 571.22 million while growers have contributed over 17 percent of the project cost.

Project Director informed the governor that an agreement has been concluded with Suparco for installation of satellite system which will have coordination with the Revenue, Agriculture, Education, Health and Police departments.

Dr Ibad called for regular cleaning of canals coming out of barrages with gradual cleaning of feed channels and watercourses.—APP