LAHORE, Oct 23: Punjab Agriculture Minister Arshad Khan Lodhi said on Monday that the President’s National Programme of Bricklining of Watercourses was in progress in the province, and 3,110 watercourses had so far been bricklined during the last two years.

Talking to farmers after inspecting the process of lining, the minister said that the rest of the watercourses would be lined soon. He said that the agriculture sector could be saved only through timely construction of dams for storing rainwater.

He said that the bricklined water courses could greatly help save irrigation water and President Pervez Musharraf had allocated Rs66 billion for bricklining all watercourses in the country. He said Punjab would brickline 28,000 watercourses in total and had done almost 3,100 of them.

Answering a question, the minister said that though the bricklined watercourses could not be a substitute for dams, a substantial amount of water could be saved in this manner. He said that according to experts, 3maf could be restored only in Punjab through bricklining water courses.

He said that each and every drop of water could help save our agriculture and industrial sectors. The minister said that the Punjab government was utilising all its resources for the development of agriculture and projects like bricklining water courses being implemented to bring about a green revolution in the country and promote industrial sector.

Earlier, the minister inspected cotton crop at different places and hoped that Punjab would be able to achieve the target of 10.8 million bales of cotton.

The farmers, however, said that it would be a miracle if the province achieved that target and added the minister was too optimistic.

They said it was in everybody’s knowledge that cotton was sown late because there was no water at the start of kharif. They said a prolonged wet spell in the country had exposed the crop to every kind of virus attack and there were few districts where not even a single acre escaped the attack. Flooding caused by highly wet spell along river banks almost wiped the crop off, they said.

These factors, the farmers said, would not let the province and country achieve the target. They said official statistics showed an abnormal drop in use of fertiliser in kharif. They said these figures were issued by none other than the government itself.

“It will be a blessing if the country touches the figure of 11.5 million bales against its target of 13 million bales,” says Ahmad Khan from Vehari.

In our district, he said there was hardly any acre left which did not come under pest attack. There are few crucial districts that help the government achieve target, and Vehari is certainly one of them, he said.

Reports from the other districts like Multan, Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar are not encouraging. —Staff Reporter