Australia extends Rs 54 mn for water resource management

Islamabad: The Australian government on Wednesday extended a grant of one million Australian dollars (approx Rs 54 million) to ensure equitable distribution of canal and ground water for the judicious distribution of precious water resources, says a press release.

The Australian government project is conducted under the auspices of the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR), which has been an agricultural research partner in Pakistan since 1984. The arrangement to implement the project was signed by Jason Roberstson, Australian Deputy High Commissioner in Pakistan, and M Akram Malik, Secretary of the Pakistan Economic Affairs Division, the release said.

It said that decreasing water supply and rising groundwater usage are closely correlated to decreasing crop yields and increasing land salination. Water supply diminishes with distances along the canals, due to a range of technical and socio-economic issues. The reduced water availability can be offset by improved water management, taking into account spatial differentials in soil physiography, groundwater dynamics, and cropping patterns existing at the head, middle and tail reaches of the canal. Australia has the world's leading technology in integrated water resource management research.

From a research perspective, the challenge is to customise canal and groundwater management to local conditions - given that the crop-groundwater-soil mix is a function of distance to canal and socio-economic parameters. Implementation of knowledge-based management options will lead to improved overall efficiency and productivity of the system, and will eventually mitigate the land salination issue, the release added.

ACIAR's implementation partners for this important project will be: Charles Sturt University, Australia; the Punjab Irrigation and Drainage Authority (Pida); and the University of Agriculture Faisalabad. These institutions will work with farmers' organisations in the command area of the Lower Chenab Canal (LCC) system.

On behalf of the government of Punjab, the Punjab Irrigation and Power Department (PID) and the Punjab Irrigation and Drainage Authority (Pida) have also contributed Rs 80 million to the project. Pida operates and maintains one of the world's largest irrigation canal systems.

Water from the five rivers and their complex network of canals has been irrigating the Punjab for over a century. The water requirement has increased greatly with the passage of time. In particular, there is an acute shortage of irrigation water in the command area of the Lower Chenab Canal (LCC) system, so that it has become difficult to feed tail portions of the system even when there is ample availability of water in rivers, the release said.

At the signing ceremony, the Australian Deputy High Commissioner, Jason Robertson, said: 'I am happy to note that the most likely project outcome will be rational management of canal and groundwater, based on the best biophysical information, system limits and constraints, and stakeholder-driven equity principles.' He also expressed satisfaction with the fact that the project will underpin wider institutional reforms affecting irrigation in Punjab and Sindh.

The Australian government has recently broadened its programme of bilateral and multilateral projects in Pakistan to encompass the horticulture and dairy sectors.

These build on a longer-term focus on natural resource management issues such as efficient water use, salinity and drainage, and tillage options for irrigated cereal cropping. The new focus arises from the Australia-Pakistan Agriculture Sector Linkages Programme (ASLP), which is managed and implemented by ACIAR.