WB urges farmers to pay higher amount of irrigation water tax

HYDERABAD        -    A team leader of the World Bank’s task force on irrigation Toru Kinoshi has advised the Farmers Organizations (FOs) to convince the farmers to pay a higher amount of the irrigation water tax so that the same money can be spent on the infrastructure development.Kinoshi and other members of his team on Sunday visited the water distributaries of Akram Canal in Tando Muhammad Khan district and held meetings with the local FOs. “The existing rate of abyana (water tax) is too low and it’s insufficient to meet the expenses for development and maintenance of the irrigation system,” he observed.According to him, the rate of water tax in Pakistan was among the lowest in the whole world. “If the irrigation system is to be saved, abyana will have to be raised,” he emphasized. The Consultant of United National Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) Ahsan Laghari suggest at source deduction or some other indirect way

 

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