LAHORE, Dec 27: The Punjab on Friday launched a Rs30 million drive to desilt 30,016km of distributaries and improve water supply to tail-ends.

According to the irrigation authorities, the department had synchronised the campaign with the canal closure period that was to start on Dec 26. During the next one month, the department plans to remove over 96.5 million cubic feet of silt with the help of 24,841 people, 77 tractors and 34 bulldozers. The province has 23,000 miles of canals and 19,000 miles of minors and distributaries.

Most of the distributaries should have been desilted many years ago, but a paucity of funds hindered the process. According to an official of the irrigation department, these canals used to be desilted every five years before and after the partition. But, of late, the process has hit snags. Former chief minister Ghulam Haider Wyne introduced the idea of voluntary desilting involving farmers of the area but failed to achieve the desired results.

With the arrival of military government, the idea of involving army personnel in the campaign was approved. It achieved somewhat better but not optimal results, he said. Now, the department is trying to carry out desilting in a way to get better results, he added.

Most of the complaints of the farmers at the tail of these minors and distributaries are because of silt, which gets accumulated in the channels and hampers the flow of water. He denied that silt increased water losses. It only hampers the flow of water and causes uneven distribution. Farmers upstream draw more water and those at the tail suffer.

The department naturally releases water according to the capacity of the channel. Farmers at the head can draw extra water as they know that water would not reach the tail anyway.

The main objective of the desilting campaign is to get a more even distribution of water and let every farmer get water as per his share from the national pool.