KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has said that overall revamping and re-organising of Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (SIDA) is essential not only to enhance its capacity but also to ensure its performances up to expectation of the growers.
This he stated while presiding over 41th meeting of SIDA Board and to review its performances here on Monday.
Additional Chief Secretary, Development, Arif Ahmed Khan, Secretary Irrigation, Babar Afandi, MD SIDA Ahsan Leghari, representative from Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, Zahid Bhurgari and other officers from Irrigation, SIDA and P&D Department attended the meeting.
The Chief Minister said the agriculture sector was the backbone of our socio-economic life and it cannot deliver without having sufficient irrigation water available for each farmer but unfortunately here we are receiving complaints from the growers whom we cannot ignore. "We are committed to the people to provide judicious share of the water from the sources available", he remarked.
Syed Qaim Ali Shah directed the members of the committee to come with innovative proposals rather than conventional.
He said that Sindh Government giving importance to irrigation sector as such the annual allocation of Rs 12 billion has been made only for development works in Irrigation Department while Rs 35 million annually is being provided to the SIDA for its operational activities.
He said that the benefits of such huge amount must be trickled down to the growers.
He said that Sindh was an agro industrial province as such integrated planning was underway to bring a soci-economic revolution by improving both sectors. He said that availability of irrigation water upto tail- end and energy for industrial growth was very much essential to progress.
He said that in addition to the development projects assigned to Sindh Irrigation Department, the SIDA has been entrusted to implement Water Sector Improvement Project-I (WSIP-I) with its total cost of $ 175 million and complete it by 2015 and at that time hopefully we will be able to start generation of coal and wind- based energy to meet our domestic and industrial requirement.
Additional Chief Secretary Arif Ahmed Khan said that keeping in view future requirements another new project aimed to bring improvement and lining of 5000 water courses out of 17000 earthen water courses was being conceived.
He said that World Bank was interested to provide financial aid up to $ 192 million for this project and negotiations in this regard are in progress.
He said that though SIDA has not delivered upto expectation of the growers and the government however there are some bottlenecks in the system, which must also be removed and hopefully it can deliver if same are resolved.
Syed Qaim Ali Shah floated a proposal for application of the method of public private partnership for distribution of irrigation water and added that this model may be experienced at one distributary as a pilot project.
The MD SIDA Ahsan Leghari while briefing the meeting said that besides, meeting flood challenges in 2010-11 with success, the SIDA has delivered not only up to the expectation of growers but comparatively better.
He said that in short span of time 350 distributaries have been taken over by his organisation which were being run by farmers' organisations.
He said that in addition to that SIDA was actively working on Sindh Water Sector Improvement Project-I and hopefully this work will deliver to the growers more than their expectation.
However, he pointed out some bottlenecks and recommended for strengthening his organisation.
The Chief Minister constituted a committee headed by Additional Chief Secretary Development with Secretary Irrigation, Managing Director of SIDA and one representative from Sindh Chamber of Agriculture to discuss and deliberate, collect the ideas from experts and submit proposals within two weeks to him.
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