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 Sindh Onfarm Water Management Program (SOWMP).
"Work on two programs is continued and so far we have improved 12,000 watercourses... total 29,000 watercourses would be improved under NPIWs while 4,000 under the SOWMP in Sindh," official sources in Sindh Agriculture Department told Business Recorder on Tuesday.
In December 2007, President Pervez Musharraf had cleared a revised strategy for the Rs 86 billion NPIWs project, with a 50/50 share of the federal and provincial governments. Whereas the federal government and provinces were to contribute 40 percent each the farmers were declared to bear the remaining 20 percent.
"The NPIWs is a program of Rs 22 billion and Rs 4.5 billion would be invested on the SOWMP", said the official. After exceeding the 5000 watercourses target in 2007 by 700 watercourses the Sindh government had targeted improvement of 7,000 watercourses during 2008, he added.
"The work is almost stopped nowadays as the winter's paddy season is on its peak but hopefully we will achieve the target", the official said. He said "199 field teams" including 5,500 employees from Grade-19 to Grade-1, were exclusively employed by the provincial government for accomplishment of the project within its due time. "Though work is being carried out on an accelerated pace but the project is not likely to be completed in its stipulated timeframe and would take at least another two to three years", he viewed.
After completion, official said, the program would help the country to avoid wastage of around "30 percent" water, shortage and logging of water and benefit the tail-end areas and give remarkable boost to the per yield production.
To create a sense of participation among the farmers and make the projects corruption-free and transparent the government had decided to let the investment job on "water user associations". "What is so special of the programs is that the farmers are exempted of up-front cost and they only pay for the masonry and labour charges," he added.
He said the projects were running under a vigilant eye of the Sindh Government and NPIWs' Project Director Muhammad Younus Daga.