ISLAMABAD, Jan 19: The World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have expressed serious concern over the low economic rate of return and the unsatisfactory performance of 40 small dams, built over the years in Pakistan.

Informed sources told Dawn on Friday that both the donor agencies had urged the government to take into account the advances made in the international arena about the construction of small dams with a view to benefiting people through more hydropower generation and fulfilling agricultural needs of the country.

They believed that the economic performance of small dams remained short of target due to slow development of irrigated agriculture and reduced life of the dams caused by the high rates of sediments inflow, said the sources.Even though Pakistan's small dams are located in areas with high levels of sediments yield, limited attention has been given to reducing sediment inflow. Survey results from existing projects completed over the past 40 years reveal that in a number of cases, the available water storages have been reduced by half within one to two generations with consequent reduction in economic benefits.

Introducing sustainable watershed management to mitigate sediments inflows was, therefore, critical and a priority measure for both and existing dams, the sources quoted donors as saying.

They believed that opportunity now existed to optimise and update procedures in the light of the experience gained over the years, said the sources. The building of small dams was ending up due to the limited utilisation of reservoir water for purposes other than agriculture.

However, both the donors believed that there was a substantial potential for improvements to capitalise on the value of water stored in the reservoirs and to improve local water resources.

Slow or inadequate development of irrigated agriculture in the Cultivable Command Area (CCA) is a major concern for the economic performance of small dam projects. The main reason included delay in developing watercourses and preparing farm land for irrigation and difficulties in adopting higher value irrigated cropping systems. Farmers having no experience with irrigated agriculture and scarce financial resources have been left on their own to develop watercourses, organise water distribution and level their fields at high costs.

Both the donor agencies were told that efficient irrigated methods were lacking and that options such as pressurised piped systems would be significantly improved over the current practice of gravity irrigation having high conveyance and distribution losses. Extension support to promote remunerative irrigated cropping systems, when provided, is not adopted. The current approach treats all farmers as homogeneous groups and fails to target farmers' differences and specific constraints. As a result a majority of farmers have not changed cropping pattern and treat reservoir water only as a supplementary source for additional crops. Some encouraging cases of adopting new high-value cropping systems exist but these are the exception rather than the norm.

The World Bank and the ADB were informed that the majority of the existing small dam projects focus on irrigation. Benefits from other water uses are often foregone, undervalued or incorporated at a later date at additional cost. Taking a multi-purpose and integrated view of water resource development through small and medium dams for communities in the Barani areas can satisfy other vital community needs and also introduce income-generating activities to help cover the projects operation and maintenance (O&M) cost.

Both the donors were of the view that the lessons learned from previous experience also called for improvements in the project implementation methodology and arrangements. Ownership of the beneficiary communities was quite low in most cases and could partially explain problems experienced after dam construction, they observed.