Watercourses lining brooks no delay

That the Sindh government has completed lining of 12,000 watercourses out of the targeted 33,000 under the National Programme for Improvement of Watercourses (NPIWs) and work on the Sindh Onfarm Water Management Programme (SOWMP) has been stated, a news report, quoting an official, said the other day.
The official also made a pointed reference to the President's clearance of a revised strategy for the Rs 86 billion NPIWs project under implementation with 50/50 share of the federal and provincial governments. However, while maintaining that the work has been temporarily stopped due to the winter paddy season, he expressed the hope that the target would be achieved within the stipulated timeframe. Be that as it may, mutually divergent dates about the time of completion of the project are apt to cause confusion.
For, it was also stated that though work was being carried out on an accelerated pace the project was unlikely to be completed in its stipulated timeframe and that it would take at least another two to three years.
Needless to point out, the confusion thus arising will be worse confounded if viewed in the perspective of an earlier report as appearing towards the end of 2007. According to it, the Irrigation Department had disputed the presentation made on canal lining in a Sindh Cabinet meeting, claiming that the number of watercourses lined during 2006-07 was far less than 5740 and pointing to the need of ascertaining the exact extent of work done and the money spent on it.
At the same time it was contended that whatever work done for lining of watercourses or canals had remained concentrated in the farming areas of big and politically influential farmers, while canals feeding the tail-end farmers had either dried up or were overflowing with excessive water that was going to waste.
It was stated that the work on lining of watercourses had remained slow and, despite a lapse of six months, nearly 70 percent of funds released had been spent on the project. Again, while lamenting the absence of any evidence of the exact number of watercourses cemented, it was feared that the balance of the fund in hand was unlikely to meet the cost of unfinished work.
All in all, it will appear that the important task of lining of watercourses so vital for agriculture and all that goes with it, unfortunately, leaves a great deal to be desired. Which, to say the least, does not bode well for rehabilitating agriculture in its proper place in the economy.
As agriculture constitutes the backbone of the Pakistan economy and water happens be the life blood of farming, and as the country also boasts the world's largest canal irrigation network, nothing could have hampered its development as an agri-based highly advanced country. But as ill luck had it, early planners of the economy failed to comprehend the tremendous potential of agriculture.
Seemingly anxious to transform Pakistan into an economic giant by virtue of its tremendous resources they got misled into taking a start with developing industry from a scratch. Perhaps, they did so as this sector of economy was virtually non-existent in the areas forming part of Pakistan in both eastern and western wings.
However, in going for this option they must have been inspired by the abundance of raw material, for instance, cotton and jute, in the country's agriculture sector. In their raw form these were of little use inside the country, hence were exported at throwaway prices. But transformed into yarn and cloth through industrial processes their worth and value could be incredibly enhanced under a strategy of import substitution.
It did appeal to potential entrepreneurs' imagination too. It is, however, another matter that excessive emphasis on industry and that too at the cost of agriculture proved detrimental to the nation's overall economic interests. It was too heavy a price the country had eventually to pay.
As later developments brought to the fore, the urgency of addressing lapses on the agriculture front, was realised too late. It had become a tremendous task to grapple with except through a multi-directional thrust, which also included the ongoing exercise to rehabilitate the much neglected irrigation network.
It will thus be noted with quite some satisfaction that in its eventual scheme of things the federal government did provided Rs 120 billion, with the help of World Bank, to the provinces for lining of canals and watercourses and saving valuable water from seepage.
In the same vein, the Sindh government has awarded a project to a distinguished private firm for providing state-of-the-art mechanised irrigation system for water conservation and productivity enhancement. It will also be noted that the government has allocated over Rs 18 billion under a subsidiary programme for five years to help farmers adopt latest irrigation systems and techniques.
The overall effort can certainly augur well for restructuring of the otherwise shattering economy on sound lines with adequately strengthened agriculture. As such, canal irrigation network serving about 36 million acres of land to produce a wide range of cash, food, and other major and minor crops needs tidying up without any delay with prime focus on lining of canals and watercourses.