MULTAN
Assistant Director Agricultural Information Naveed Asmat Kahloon said that the tertiary canal commanded irrigation system in Punjab comprises about 58,000 watercourses while the colossal loss of water stood at 40 percent because of poor maintenance and aging of these century old community channels.
Talking to the journalists here on Wednesday, he said that the water loss resulted in severe shortage of irrigation supplies at the farm level and was being further aggravated due to escalating pressure on agriculture because of rapidly increasing population.
The official said that about 44,000 watercourses have been remodeled and reconstructed in the canal commanded areas of Punjab besides launching of 13,000 irrigation schemes in non-canal commanded areas under a programme.
He claimed that the intervention generated significant economic, financial, social and environmental benefits. He explained that the main causes of water losses in watercourses were seepage, spillage and side leakage resulting from irregular profile and zigzag alignment of banks. He emphasised that these losses can be minimised by adopting watercourse improvement procedure which consists of complete demolishing of community channel and its rebuilding/re-aligning according to the engineering design to increase conveyance efficiency by reducing seepage, evaporation and operational losses.
He said that salient impacts of watercourse improvement were annual water saving (acre-ft) 122%, improvement in crop yields 2-15%, increase in cropping intensity 4%, saving in irrigation time 28%, expansion in irrigated area 21%, reduction in labor for irrigation 50%, enhancement in farm incomes 15%, decrease in conveyance losses 39%, curtailment in saline area 87%. He said that the government of Punjab provided entire cost of construction materials besides providing technical guidance while the famers were asked to contribute labor costs for improvement of the watercourses.
About water budget, he said that Punjab’s share in water accord 1991 was 56 MAF while losses in canal diversions and in canals stood at 19 million acre ft. Hence water availability at Moghas is 37 MAF, while losses in watercourses are 11 MAF (30%) and water available at farm gate is 26 MAF. In addition to this ground water abstractions are 33 MAF, hence total water available at field level is 59 MAF. Field losses occur 21 MAF (35%) and net available at field level is 38 MAF. He further stated that rainfall contribution is 7 MAF and net available water for crop use is 45 MAF against actual crop water requirements of 65 MAF.