HYDERABAD, June 12: The director-general of agriculture engineering and water management, Agha Zafarullah Durrani, here on Monday handed over a laser land leveller unit to the Farmers’ Organisation of the Gurki minor.

This is the first of provincial farmers organisation which received the laser land leveller unit at half price under the World Bank aided the “Sindh On-Farm Water Management” project.

Chaudhry Gulzar Ahmed Gill, vice-chairman of the Gurki minor farmers organisation, received the unit.

Senior irrigation specialist WB and task team leader of the project Mr Usman Qamar and other members of the visiting WB review mission were present in the ceremony held at the office of the director-general.

Mission leader Usman Qamar congratulated the farmer body receiving the unit. However, he said it was not a new thing as this equipment was benefiting the farmers of Punjab, Sindh and elsewhere.

He said, so far this equipment was being used by influential farmers and even by sugar mills.

He said that after the use of this unit by the farmers concerned, it could also be rented out to other growers.

Gulzar Ahmed Gill said there was immense benefit of the use of this equipment, but he regretted that so far very few farmers were aware of the utility of the machine. He said, with the land levelling through this unit, water irrigating one acre would irrigate two acres.

He said the roots of the crop on unlevelled land were burnt due to accumulation of water at certain places. After being aware of the benefits of the use of this unit, he said, no farmer would cultivate his land without using laser land leveller unit.

He appealed to the government to provide this facility to more farmers in the larger interest of the development of agriculture.

Zafarullah Durrani said that without levelling land, water’s fair distribution on the land could not be ensured.