LAHORE, Jan 29: The Rs66 billion project on lining of watercourses, now in third year of execution, is becoming increasingly controversial in Punjab, with officials terming it a “huge success” that would help transform provincial agriculture and farmers calling it a “sheer wastage of national resources.”

The farmers insist that it was basically a “distraction”, diverting focus away from the need for new dams. The project did so for a while, but the need for dams has come back strongly with increasing water shortages.

The farmers, being the end users, demand greater say in such decision in future, as they are the direct affectees. But, to their gloom, “bureaucracy has successfully stalled their effort” so far.

“The country has had a stream of such schemes during the last few decades,” says Farooq Bajwa of the Punjab Water Council.

Every scheme was launched with a guarantee of saving many million acres feet of water. But, nothing has been saved so far. If indeed something has been saved, the department must provide some clue to farmers. If it was saved, it was being wasted or stolen because the national reservoirs did not reflect that saving, he added.

But, Mushtaq Gill, director-general of Water Management and head of the project, says that it was never meant to “save water, but only to restore it.” The difference between the two phrases is that restoration means improving supplies at the watercourses level. The farmers have been wasting water and then putting up with the reduced supplies due to mismanagement. The lining would reduce that mismanagement and add to their supplies at the farm gate level. But, it was never meant at saving water and reflecting it in dams.

Lining of 10, 15, 20 and, in some cases, up to 30 per cent of watercourses could hardly make any difference for farmers, says Sardar Zafar Husain Khan of Kissan Board of Pakistan (KBP). The department was just repairing the rest of watercourses to save “insignificant” amount of water. There was hardly any need of wasting Rs66 billion on a work with such a minor benefit, he insisted.

The government could have provided plastic sheets and the farmers could have buried them a few inches underground and put soil on it, thus improving water flow. There was hardly any need to turn it into a national effort and waste a huge amount on it, he added.

It was indeed an official effort to deflect attention away from dams, he said.

But, Mr Gill says that the government was only lining the most critical points or parts of the watercourses, like a part of watercourse running through a village. By concentrating on the most vital parts, the project is designed at improving equity, efficiency and reliability of the water distribution system in the province, he claimed.

In order to improve all three, such a big national project was definitely required, he added.

The end of current fiscal year would see some 12,556 watercourses lined in the province. In the next three years, the total would be 28,000 watercourses.

He said the project has partial community participation. The farmers contribute a part of finances. The government, district government in this case, then paid its part and farmers hired their own manpower to complete the job. It also generated a sense of ownership in the farmers.

He said it was never meant to be a substitute for dams in the country. Dams have their own utility and such on-farm management steps have their own benefits. Both efforts were mutually exclusive, and should be taken as such, he said.

All said and done, those heads of the project must prove what kind of benefit the farmers have accrued by this project, says Hamid Malhi of the Punjab Water Council.

“It is the duty of the planners and executioners to come with a measurable and measured part of benefits that has come to farmers,” he said.

“The farmers, who are direct stakeholder, have been opposing the project. All farmer bodies are on record opposing it. But, the government went ahead with the project in total disregard to their view. Now, it is hell-bent on proving utility of the project. This attitude has neither benefited the farmers and farming sector in the past nor would it do in future,” he concluded.